BEIJING, China (AFP) — Guangzhou FC, China’s most successful football team and former Asian champions, have been thrown out of the country’s professional leagues because of “heavy historical debt,” the club said.

The effective demise of the eight-time Chinese Super League (CSL) winners, once managed by Marcello Lippi and also Fabio Cannavaro, signals the end of an era in the domestic game in China.

Dozens of Chinese clubs, including fellow former CSL champions Jiangsu Suning, have folded in recent years in debt.

“The club tried various means to gain access to the professional league,” Guangzhou FC, formerly known as Guangzhou Evergrande, said.

“However, because of the heavy historical debt burden, the funds we raised were insufficient to clear them.”

The Chinese Football Association (CFA) excluded Guangzhou from a list of 49 teams included in China’s professional leagues for 2025.

Guangzhou once dominated Chinese football, winning seven consecutive CSL titles from 2011 to 2017 and two Asian Champions League crowns.

But they were relegated to China’s second tier in 2022 after their majority owner, property developers Evergrande Real Estate Group, ran into financial difficulties as the country’s property market slumped. The club’s last title came in 2019.

Guangzhou had invested heavily in players, breaking China’s transfer record multiple times as Evergrande Group pumped millions into the squad.

They paid $46 million, then a record for an Asian team, for striker Jackson Martinez from Atletico Madrid in 2016. It was in an era of big spending by Chinese teams.

In that period, they had a string of illustrious foreign managers including Italian World Cup winners Lippi and Cannavaro, and Brazil’s Luiz Felipe Scolari.

In 2020, the club began construction on a new $1.86 billion stadium that Evergrande Group said would have capacity for at least 80,000 fans.

The project was canceled in 2022 as the group racked up $300 billion in liabilities.

The club was renamed Guangzhou FC in 2021 after new CFA rules forbid teams from including references to companies or sponsors in their names.

Guangzhou finished third in second-tier China League One in the 2024 season, missing out on promotion.

“We express our sincerest apologies to fans and everyone from all walks of life that have supported the club,” the club said in their statement on Monday.