Waxwork Rooney, Premier League trophy on display

SHANGHAI - The Chelsea Football Club, the newly-crowned English Premier League (EPL) champion, is relinquishing control of the winner's trophy for a few days so it can be displayed at the United Kingdom Pavilion on Thursday, alongside a wax statue of Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney.

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The trophy will be paraded around the pavilion's Urban Park on Thursday morning, then briefly lent to one of the schools involved in the British Council's Premier Skills project on Friday before it is flown back to London. Rooney's wax likeness, on loan from Madame Tussauds Shanghai, will remain in the park for two weeks.

The pavilion has timed the event perfectly, two weeks before the FIFA World Cup kicks off in South Africa and days after a bearded Rooney appeared with a raft of celebrity players in Nike's "Write the Future" TV advertisement, which debuted in the early hours on Sunday (China time) during the European Champions League final.

Rooney, known to many of his Chinese fans as "Da Pangzi" (fatty), was "huge" in China long before he helped United hammer neighboring team Hangzhou Greentown 8-2 last July during their Asia Tour.

The Premier Skills project is an educational program jointly run by England's top-flight Premier League and the British Council. It uses football as a tool to help young children develop their skills while training scores of coaches nationwide.

It is one of a number of ongoing community projects organized by the EPL and the UK Pavilion to promote sports and cultural exchanges. Another of these, an online project called "Football Face", will see the lucky winner get a free trip to the UK to watch Premier League matches live. The winner will be announced at the pavilion on Thursday.