#1 Dalian Shide
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With the amount of money being pumped into Chinese football at the minute, it’s hard to imagine any club ceasing to exist, but back in 2013, China’s most successful team had a dramatic fall from grace.
Dalian Shide won the Chinese top-flight 4 times, before billionaire Xu Ming took over, and though his close acquaintances wrote him off as a man with no footballing knowledge whatsoever, Shide continued to dominate Chinese football; winning 3 more titles on the bounce and also picking up a Chinese FA Cup.
Xu Ming then began to slow down investment into the club, funding his political friend Bo Xilai – who was the mayor of Dalian and a held a high rank in the communist party – instead. Bo’s wife was imprisoned for the murder of a British businessman and after an investigation, both Bo and Xiu were charged with corruption as it turned out that the politician had accepted bribes of around £3 million from the Dalian Shide owner.
The club itself was supposed to merge with the Aerbin Group, who formed their own club, Dalian Aerbin but the Chinese FA refused. The Aerbin Group eventually purchased Dalian Shide outright and swallowed the club, thereby causing its demise.
A similar fate was suffered by negligent chairman Xu Ming, who died of a heart attack in prison at the age of 44.
