Michael Jordan is the most important player in basketball history. On and off the court.

They know both stories: that of the guard who won three rings , retired to be a baseball player, returned to win three other titles, retired again and returned to put on the Washington Wizards jersey; and that of the media star , the man who changed sports sponsorship and who Nike made his brand holy, globalizing a face, a number and a name that today has made Jordan the billionaire businessman who is .

And as a good billionaire, you have to deal with competitors . Not only in the NBA, where he rules in the Charlotte Hornets , also outside of it, where he tries to manage the empire of ' Jordan Brand ', one of the categories in which Nike's products are divided, which together with his other earnings within and outside of basketball it has made him accumulate a bag of more than two billion dollars.

But in China , Jordan has a problem. If the NBA was already turbulently navigating the Asian seas since the preseason controversy over the Houston Rockets general manager's remarks about the Hong Kong revolts , now it's the Bulls' '23' who has had legal difficulties in the Chinese country, although in this case it seems that it will be victorious.

The NBA's six-ring winner has defeated clothing brand Qiaodan Sports in an intellectual property lawsuit , which Jordan had denounced more than eight years ago for misappropriating his name, as 'Qiaodan' appears to be the Most common way of writing the sound produced by Chinese characters to refer to 'Jordan '. After comings and goings, lawsuits and counterclaims, the Chinese Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the former player, making good his argument that the Asian company had profited from his name and fame for money .

While it made no reference to Jordan in the early days, during the 1990s and 2000s, Qiaodan displayed images of a basketball player accompanying his brand. A player, also, who wore the '23'. It became, in short, a copy of Jordan Brand. With Yao Ming's arrival in the American league, the popularity of the NBA soared, and with it that of Qiaodan Sports, culminating in the 2008 Beijing Games.

The mess came when Nike wanted to increase sales of its products by moving to the Chinese market. He tried to register several of them under the name of Jordan ... But his requests were rejected . Why? Qiaodan was already there and, according to Sports Ilustrated, "the Chinese authorities considered that Jordan could be confused with Qiaodan ".

There the legal duel between the two companies began . Judgment that today, according to the latest information, would have opted for Jordan's side. Qiaodan would have to revoke the use of Michael's name, but not his logo or number, circumstances that are awaiting further litigation. The figures with which the Asian company will have to compensate Jordan remain to be known, but they will surely be billionaires.

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