Bankers, agents, fixers: the middlemen behind China's global soccer splurge

FILE PHOTO: Brazilian international midfielder Oscar arrives at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport, after agreeing to join China super league football club Shanghai SIPG from Chelsea in Shanghai, China, January 2, 2017. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A former property banker, Briton Alex Jarvis, said he fell into China's football boom with a chance encounter in the first class lounge of a cruise liner bound for New York in 2011.

Three months later, he was in Chongqing, one of China's biggest cities, on a deal. First it was a property; soon after that, a soccer transaction.