Korean casino hires Mourinho to attract punters from China

Paradise hopes Mourinho, a football manager with a string of accomplishments that includes the UEFA Champions League titles in 2004 and 2010, will now kick goals for the casino and win over Chinese customers. It expects the Incheon resort to attract 160,000 visitors a day, of which two-thirds are likely to be Chinese.

Paradise is teaming up with Japan's Sega Sammy Holdings to build a US$1.7 billion casino resort in the coastal city of Incheon, near the country's main international airport, with construction to be completed in 2017.

It faces steep competition from operators like Genting Singapore and Caesars Entertainment, which are moving to build their own tourist-focused resorts in South Korea, where all but one of the existing 17 casinos are open only to foreigners.

The number of Chinese tourists to South Korea surged 52.5 per cent to 4.3 million last year, according to the Korea Tourism Organisation. "The growing interest in football in China, and the fact that a significant number of casino customers are Chinese, was the main reason behind naming Mourinho as the model," Paradise said in a statement.

Gaming revenues in South Korea totaled USD 2.7 billion in 2013 according to research house CIMB, slightly higher than in the Philippines at $2.6 billion but trailing both Singapore at USD 6.4 billion and the Chinese territory of Macau, at USD45 billion.