Madrid’s Wanda Metropolitano stadium hosting the Champions League final was an impossible dream which could still have an unhappy ending.

Nearly two months after reports about Chinese regulators’ scrutiny of the country’s top dealmakers, the concerns have left a mark in the local bond market, where one of those companies is facing yields double the national average.

China’s Hisense Group has signed with FIFA to become a World Cup sponsor, a major win for an organisation dogged by a corruption scandal and struggling to enlist corporate partners for the world’s most popular sporting contest.

Forget the London clubs. Forget Manchester. Forget Paris, Monaco and Rome. The most significant foreign investment in European football came last week and it’s not Russian, Arab or American but Chinese, writes David Shonfield.

China’s richest man, property developer Wang Jianlin, raised the curtain on a planned 50bn yuan (€6bn) “motion- picture city” which he described as the biggest-ever single investment in the movie and television industry.