Guangzhou Evergrande ‘worth more than Manchester United and Real Madrid’ claims China’s state media

There’s been some nonsensical valuations flying around in Chinese football recently, with clubs shelling out ridiculous sums for foreign players, but the latest might take the cake.

Xinhua seemingly reached its conclusion by taking the price of the first public trade in Guangzhou stock – a trade which was worth US$300,000 – and extrapolating a market cap from there.

Guangzhou was listed on China’s National Equities Exchange and Quotations (NEEQ) in November 2015, but according to Xinhua, the first trade was only made on Tuesday.

“The Evergrande’s [sic] transaction per share values at 55 yuan (US$8.5), selling 36,000 shares for 1.98 million yuan (US$300,000) in the club’s first trade” reported Xinhua.

“Evergrande’s market value [therefore] amounts to 21.8 billion yuan (US$3.35 billion) in a total of 396.73 million shares.”