Abstract: The bankruptcy of Tianjin Tianhai Football Club has attracted a great deal of attention from the academia and the industry. The article makes a case study on the bankruptcy of Tianjin Tianhai Football Club, and points out the financial risks of professional football clubs and its causes. The financial risks include: club fund supply risk, club investment risk, club operation risk and force majeure risk. Causes include: low revenue capacity of clubs, single funding channel; management subject offside exacerbating clubs' operational risk; irrational investment mode. In view of these, the article puts forward some strategies for professional football clubs in China to avoid financial risks, which include: firmly implementing the reform of club equity diversification to realize risk sharing; encouraging clubs to optimize their investment and operation structure to effectively disperse risks; constructing the performance evaluation system of professional football clubs to scientifically predict risks; and exploring the establishment of a rescue mechanism to reasonably resolve risks.

Key words: professional football clubs, financial risk, risk causes, avoiding strategies