SHANGHAI: Hull City fans worrying about the club owner’s wish to formalise the club’s nickname, Tigers, can console themselves with the thought that it could be worse.

Controversy-enshrouded Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua have just become . . . Shanghai Greenland Football Club/Shanghai Greenland Shenhua Team.

The catchy new label has been applied after the club’s sale by Zhu Jun, the man who bought Shanghai United, then bought Shanghai Shenhua, then merged the two teams, keeping Shanghai United’s manager but Shenhua’s name, colours and brand, then sacked the manager and brought Shenhua’s old manager back in.

Zhu is also the owner who wasted enormous sums of money on Nicolas Anelka, Jean Tigana, Didier Drogba & Co.

He has sold up to the massive Greenland property group which is promising to return Greenland Shenhua to the top of the Chinese league – somewhere they have not been seen since the 2003 title win of which they were later stripped because of matchfixing.

LYNDON RADNEDGE

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