The Premier League and the Beijing Football Association (BFA) have announced the line-up for the Barclays Asia Trophy tournament from July 29-31 in Beijing.
As one of the headline events at the inaugural 2009 Beijing International Football Festival, it will be complemented by an Italian Super Cup match between Inter Milan and Lazio at the Bird's Nest stadium on August 8.
Now an established part of the Premier League's fixture calendar, the Barclay's Asia Trophy has been previously hosted by some of Asia's premier cities - Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Hong Kong.
All matches will take place at Beijing Workers' Stadium with 49,000 tickets available for each match day.
To help develop the sport in China, the Premier League has also committed to a full program dubbed 'Creating Chances' and including coaching initiatives, refereeing programs and community schemes to run in conjunction with the tournament.
The Premier League will run one of its innovative Premier Skills coaching courses as well as a Barclays Asia Trophy Creating Chances Community Program for 10-13 year-old children.
The Premier League is working in close partnership with BFA on both initiatives.
One man with experience of the Workers Stadium is West Ham United manager Gianfranco Zola, coach of the Italian national team at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Working with Pierluigi Casiraghi, Zola's team played the quarter-finals there in front of more than 50,000 spectators, only to be defeated 3-2 by Belgium.
Zola is thrilled to be heading back to Beijing.
"The Chinese people love football. I went there with the Italian Olympic team last year and it was clear they have a passion for the game," he said. "I was recognised by a lot of people and you could see that the Barclays Premier League is very popular over there. It is going to be an exciting experience for everyone and we are looking forward to going to Beijing."
China Daily