UEFA took another step forward to reach soccer fans around the world by launching a Chinese version of uefa.com yesterday.

The website is produced by UEFA Media Technologies in partnership with Sina.com, the biggest portal on the Chinese market and one of the biggest websites globally.

This move brings top European football closer to Chinese football fans not only in China, but also around the globe, and addresses the growing demand and popularity of football in Asia.

Together with English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and Korean languages, Chinese Mandarin is the tenth language available on uefa.com, which has now achieved a position as the football website with the widest reach on the market. Football fans will find a wealth of information about key UEFA competitions such as the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Cup and UEFA EURO 2008, as well as exclusive pay-per-view video highlights.

"This is a major step forward in our efforts to bring the passion of European football to the football fans around the world. With Sina, we have found a partner that can help us bring our vision of the world's biggest game to the world's biggest audience", said Alexandre Fourtoy, CEO of UEFA Media Technologies SA.

Cao Guowei, President and CEO of Sina Corporation added: "It is a great honour to be working together with uefa.com on the Chinese-version project. Sina.com has been dedicated to promoting European football within China, and to the worldwide Chinese community for a long time.

"Now, uefa.com is launching its Chinese-language site, and we are delighted to see that our capabilities and position as a leading force in the marketplace have already been recognized by European football's governing body through this partnership. We also believe that the Chinese-language website will achieve great success thanks to the hard work put in by both uefa.com and Sina.com."

(China Daily May 23, 2007)