Inner Mongolia Zhongyou Football Club (Chinese: 内蒙古中优), commonly referred to as Hohhot (Chinese: 呼和浩特), was a professional Chinesefootball club that last participated in the China League One division under licence from the Chinese Football Association (CFA). The team was based in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia and their home stadium was the 51,632 capacity Hohhot City Stadium. Their majority shareholders were the Hohhot Sports Bureau and Shanghai Zhongyou Real Estate Group.
History
On 8 October 2011 Shanxi Jiayi football club was officially established by the Shanghai Zhongyou Real Estate Group who formed a senior team predominantly comprised from players from the Taiyuan University of Technology.[1] With the aid of the Sports Bureau of Shanxi Province a youth team and women's team was also established and the Shanxi Sports Centre Stadium was chosen to be the club's home ground.[2] They registered to play within the third tier of the Chinese football league system in the 2012 league season while the club chose white shirts and black shorts as their home uniform. In their debut season they however decided to move to the artificial turf ground Wanbailin Stadium and later Taiyuan Institute of Electrical Engineering Stadium to play their home games.[3] On the field the club made their debut in the 2012 Chinese FA Cup where they were knocked out in the first round by Shanghai Pudong Zobon F.C. 3–1 while in their first season they finished ninth within their group.[4]
Inner Mongolia Zhongyou logo in 2016
The club owners decided not to compete within the 2013 league season after a disappointing debut campaign. Wang Bo replaced Wu Jianwen as the club's manager and the team went through an extensive rebuilding process in preparation for the 2014 league season as well as changing the club's name to Taiyuan Zhongyou Jiayi.[5] The rebuilding process would be a big success and the club would come runners-up within the league to Jiangxi Liansheng F.C. that saw them gain promotion to the second tier for the first time.[6] Despite the promotion the club officially admitted the financial difficulties required with the higher level of professionalism and would consider relocating the team to gain the necessary investment.[7]
On 5 January 2015 the Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Government Information Office held a press conference to announce that the Hohhot Sports Bureau would be investing and relocating the team to their city, which resulted in the name change of Nei Mongol Zhongyou.[8]
