Why did the Chinese Government get fed up with soccer?

Italian coach Antonio Conte warned in February 2016 that “the Chinese market is a danger for everyone, not just for Chelsea”. His fear seemed justified because two of his best players, Oscar and Ramires, had just boarded for China with salaries that not even the tycoon Roman Abramovich could match. Six years later, everything points to an existential crisis in Chinese football: historical clubs disappeared, salaries owed, empty stadiums, international stars in exodus and the faucet closed in the real estate sector that paid the bills.

The dissolution of Jiangsu FC in March gave the measure of the drama. He had won the Chinese Super League (SLC) three months ago and in his glorious days he had Alex Teixeira or coach Fabio Capello. Its end came with the crisis of its sponsor, the electrical appliance giant Suning, which needed a millionaire government bailout.

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The painting suggests the drama. Twelve of the 16 teams in the SLC owe salaries to their players and only Óscar and Fellaini of the foreign stars who years ago shone the championship remain. A dozen brilliant businessmen met in 2019 to save the championship, according to the Chinese media Sixth Tone, among whom were the presidents of the Evergrande or Wanda real estate companies. From there came the commitment to lower wages because the situation seemed to have bottomed out.

They were wrong. The coronavirus was missing, which suspended the championship and imposed empty stands after its resumption. And the real estate crisis was missing, sublimated by Evergrande, owner of Guangzhou, the team that had won eight of the championships in the last decade. Thirteen of the 16 teams are tied to the brick. With a disturbing horizon, closed the credits that it happily received from the state bank and without that official enthusiasm, the companies turned off the tap to their teams.

closed spout

Chinese football had grown with official support. China It has lifted 600 million out of poverty in forty years and in the next decade it will unseat the United States from the economic summit, but soccer has never joined the successful drift. The president, Xi Jinping, as tired as the rest of the local fans of the ridicule of his team, defined football as strategic and presented a plan that was to convert China into a power by 2050. Entrepreneurs, especially those in the booming real estate sector, got the message because there is no success in China without being in tune with power.

Xi Jinping kicks a soccer ball during his visit to the Croke Park stadium in Dublin, Ireland, in February 2012. (Photo: AP) (Brendan Moran /)

And the frenzy broke out, with purchases of European teams of ancient ancestry and top-level players. The SLC spent in the winter window of 2016 more than 300 million dollars, more than the sum of the five major European leagues. Carlos Tévez earned 40 million dollars for a season at Shanghai Shenhua that he would qualify after “vacation”. An unknown and not even international Argentine, Darío Conca, had become the third highest paid player in the world two years earlier. It was a hypertrophied model and alien to the dynamics of supply and demand. Between 70 and 80% of the 180 million spent by the teams in 2019 went on player salaries and the bulk ended up in the bank accounts of the foreign minority.

The Government understood that those expenses had only enriched foreign clubs and players but not national football and stepped on the brakes. He imposed a quota of five foreign players in each team and approved a tax that forced them to allocate the same amount of their signings to a fund for the formation of the sport in the country.

The stars will not return in the short or medium term, says Simon Chadwick, director of the Center for the Eurasian Sports Industry at Emlyon Business School. “Foreign players took advantage of Chinese naivety. The Government has realized that national football does not improve with these signings but rather by developing local talent. Look inside, he is more introspective, not only in football but in all sectors”. They will only return, he adds, if China becomes a footballing power in 2050 and the purpose is not far-fetched.

“I don’t think they will win a World Cup in the next ten years but their competitiveness will improve because football is now part of the school curriculum.”, he judges.

From the crossing in the desert a more sensible formula will emerge but now the survival of the championship is urgent. Without box office income, television rights cut and without real estate support, the teams insist on their players to lower their salaries. Some argue that only state control will save the clubs.

“The Government decides the continuity of the teams. Jiangsu disappeared because it ordered Suning to do so, but it has not forced Guangzhou to close because Evergrande, the world’s most indebted real estate company, is too big to fail. Now it requires companies to make a strategic commitment in training football, not only in professional football, and with a tangible return on investment”, maintains Chadwick.

Chinese soccer, he predicts, will continue with a formula that brings together more stable private owners and state intervention. It consists, in short, that football also meets the criteria that explain the rise of China.

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