Photo: Courtesy of Manchester United

Lu Han, once dubbed the "Chinese Justin Bieber" by foreign media, was named a "Red Devil Messenger" for Manchester United as the Premier League giants reached out to their global fan base. 

The announcement was made during Lu's first trip to the club where he met United caretaker manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and the first-team squad at the training complex during a training session, according to the club.

Singer and actor Lu, who has 59.6 million followers on China's Twitter-like social media platform Weibo, is a prominent United fan in China. 

The official Manchester United Weibo account post that announced his appointment received more than 67,000 reposts in three hours.

Lu, who once donated a soccer pitch to a remote school through Chinese charity the Hope Project, often shows off his soccer skills in popular youth reality show Keep Running.

Fans expressed good wishes to Lu and the soccer club, offering a sharp contrast to the reception for online star Cai Xukun when he was recently appointed "New Year Ambassador" by the NBA. 

In January last year, Lu, now 28, posted a Weibo message expressing his hope the Red Devils would sign then-prolific Arsenal forward Alexis Sanchez, which received wide attention from fans in both sports and pop worlds. 

A video of him cheering on United has already been viewed more than 600,000 times, the club said in a statement. 

"His passion for the Reds is well documented by the fact he holds a Guinness World Record for the most comments on a Weibo post," the club said. 

The statement noted Lu's September 2015 post "Ten years a fan, Lifelong a Red Devil!" broke his own record and has received more than 100 million comments to date. 

The Red Devils now sit sixth in the Premier League table.