Establishment in Wuhan Wuhan Qianwei F.C. was founded in
Wuhan,
Hubei Province in early 1995 on the basis of the second team of
Hubei WISCO, which had taken the vacant place in
Jia B League created by the merger of Hubei Football Team (est. 1954) and Wuhan Football Team to form its parent team in the previous year, and was relegated to
China League Two after that season. In the 1995 season, Hubei Qianwei took part in the bottom level (tier-3)
China League Two and finished fourth to gain promotion to the second division. In the second tier, they quickly received significant funding from the
Ministry of Public Security along with the
Huandao Group, a notable company in tourism industry based in
Hainan, which in turn also saw the club change its name to
Qianwei Huandao to represent their new stockholder. Qianwei Huandao tried to relocate their home ground in
Haikou, the capital city of
Hainan province, but the team finally chose to stay in
Wuhan since there was no suitable stadium in Hainan to serve as the home ground. With significant investment coming into the team, they bought several former Chinese international players such as
Feng Zhigang and
Xu Tao to strengthen the squad. This soon paid off when the club won the second-tier league and promoted to the top tier at the end of the 1996 league season.
Move to Chongqing In the top tier the owners decided that the club needed to affiliate itself with a major region that had a great football fan population, so they decided to move to the nearby city of
Chongqing and chose the
Datianwan Stadium as their new home ground. This was followed by more Chinese internationals such as
Jiang Feng and
Han Jinming joining the team and ensuring the club stayed up in the tier one at the end of the season. Ensuring that the club remain the only team within the Chongqing region, the club went on to merge and essentially take over a club in the lower-level league,
Chongqing Hongyan, after the 1999 season. This was then followed by a complete shift of the club ownership. Lifan Group, a local flagship company in automobile industry, bought the club for 55,800,000 yuan on 19 August 2000 and renamed the club
Chongqing Lifan. While all of this was happening the club's manager
Lee Jang-Soo was ensuring that the club would gradually improve each successive season and provide the club with their greatest achievement of winning the 2000
Chinese FA Cup for the first time in the club's history. Chongqing Lifan would then be eligible to enter their first continental competition when they competed in the
2001–02 Asian Cup Winners' Cup and with
Edson Tavares as their new manager he would lead the club to a semi-finals position where the club lost 0:2 to
Anyang Cheetahs before ending the competition in fourth after losing to
Al Sadd by penalty kicks after a 0:0 regular-time draw in a third-place final game.
Takeover of Yunnan Hongta In the
2003 league season Chongqing Lifan had brought in
Miloš Hrstić as their new coach, however his appointment was a disaster and the club was relegated at the end of the season. With the club desperate to remain within the top tier they would buy Yunnan Hongta's registration and merge the clubs' senior teams together allowing Chongqing Lifan to remain in the top division. Surprisingly the club would actually profit from the merger when several of the surplus players from both teams would then go on to gain investment from the Hunan Corun Group and buy Chongqing Lifan's second division registration for 20,000,000 yuan to then form
Hunan Shoking. Back on the field the club would bring in Yu Dongfeng as their new manager in the
2004 league season, however because it was an expansion season the club would stagnate at the bottom of the league, safe in the knowledge that there was no relegation that season. With no relegation again in the
2005 league season there was no improvement within the team despite the change in management with
Ma Lin coming in. With relegation reinstated in the
2006 league season the club brought in another change of management with
Xu Hong, however for the third straight season in a row the club finished bottom of the league and were relegated at the end of the season. The club would decide to bring in a new manager and hired from within with former player
Wei Xin chosen. The move would pay-off when on his second season the club won promotion back into the top tier when Chongqing came second at the end of the
2008 league season.
Dangdai era On 26 June 2016,
Jiang Lizhang purchased 98.13% of
Granada CF, setting up an affiliation, which has seen
Feng Jing and Wang Zixiang go to the Spanish club, with Chongqing Lifan. On 5 January 2017, Jiang, alongside the Dangdai International Group, purchased 90% of Chongqing Lifan, renaming the club
Chongqing Dangdai Lifan. ==Name history==