The club went on to achieve promotion and their highest ever league position of seventh in the top tier of Chinese football until they were embroiled in a match-fixing scandal in 2009.

Punished with relegation the owners eventually sold their majority on 9 December 2010 to Hung Fu Enterprise Co., Ltd and Scarborough Development (China) Co., Ltd.[4][5] On 23 May 2013 the Tiancheng Investment Group announced the acquisition of the club.

They went on to win both their legs of the quarter-finals 1–0 against Beijing Kuanli and after brushing aside Shaanxi National Power 2–0 they progressed through to the final but lost 1–0 however they were still promoted along with the winners Jiangsu Gige as well as both semi-final losers.

[8] After gaining promotion to the second tier Chengdu started the 1998 campaign well losing only two of their first nine matches in the higher division however in round 10 they were well beaten 8–0 away to Liaoning F.C.

To make the season even more disappointing, Chengdu fell at the first round of the Mexin Doors FA Cup losing 2–1 away to Jia A League side Tianjin TEDA.

The league competition followed in much the same vein with the team finishing in 9th of 12 however a mid-season venue change to City Stadium in Luzhou can't have helped however Santos did manage to achieve joint top divisional scorer with 10 goals for the club.

The team started using City Stadium in Deyang as its home ground this season and its name reverted to Chengdu in round 6 of the league in July.

[16] Chengdu underwent another name change in January 2006, when they were bought out by the then Chairman of English football team Sheffield United's Kevin McCabe, who renamed the club Chengdu Blades to reflect the new owner's nickname The Blades as well as changing the kits and badge, while the reserve team were sent to Hong Kong and named "Sheffield United (Hong Kong)" to advertise its association with the owning company.

[17] Sheffield United's unique international football model would continue with the purchase of Hungarian club Ferencvárosi TC and significant stakes with Australian team Central Coast Mariners FC, which were overseen by Group Executive Director, Michael Farnan who was responsible for the commercial development of the Sheffield United International Group.

The club's strong start to the season continued and they wouldn't even concede their first goal until 26 May 2007 in their Round 9 league game against Hohhot Black Horse, which they still went on to win 2–1.

in their next away game to put themselves within touching distance of promotion, requiring just one more win which followed a week later in round 23 with Chengdu securing their place in next season's beating Shanghai Stars 4–2 in front of their home crowd.

After an away defeat to 2007 champions Changchun Yatai on 5 April, the Blades had two successive victories against Zhejiang Green Town and Dalian Shide to move into 3rd place.

[23] It was discovered by the Chinese police that on 22 September 2007 during the team's promotion campaign that the club's President Xu Hongtao and his deputy You Kewei paid Qingdao Hailifeng F.C.