What On Earth Is Going On In The Chinese Super League?

the chinese super league has sought to present itself as the great emerging power within the world of football over the last four or five years just as chandra itself has become the world's great emerging power over the last four or five decades one of the teams at the forefront of this footballing great leap forward has been zhangsu's sooning fc backed by one of the powerhouses of china's enormous retail industry who also own current syria league leaders in tamala ranked as china's fourth wealthiest club by forbes jiangsu won promotion to china's top fight for the first time during the professional era in 2008 and they haven't been relegated since having won the chinese fa cup in 2015 the club got their hands on the most prestigious trophy of the lot the chinese super league title for the first time less than three months ago defeating eight-time chinese super league champions guangzhou ebergrand across a two-legged playoff final in front of a limited crowd in suchow the scorer of what proved to be giants's winning goal was one alex teixeira perhaps the most landmark chinese super league signing to date there had been many big money arrivals to the chinese super league before tay shara joined jiangsu in 2016 robinho paulinho and tim cahill to name a few but they were all to a certain extent on the decline teixeira most certainly was not having just enjoyed an awe-inspiring half season at shaq.nets where he had backed 22 goals in 15 league games at the halfway stage in the 2015-16 campaign there was concrete interest from liverpool under new boss jurgen klopp who had lodged an official bid yet sherra chose to join jiangsu instead his 15 million euro arrival briefly made him the league's most expensive signing breaking the record for the third time in just 10 days but it isn't the only occasion in which jiangsu sooning splashed the cash alongside taishara the club signed his compatriots ramirez from chelsea and former mancity striker joe the later appointed former england boss fabio capello and in 2019 they came mightily close to securing the signature of gareth bale in a move from real madrid it would be fair to say that for the last few years at least zhang sioux haven't messed about when it comes to their finances and their maiden league title in 2020 seemed like their crowning achievement you could say that it came as a surprise then just a few days ago when the club put out a post on wechat china's largest app which functions like a combination of whatsapp and facebook stating that they had seized all operations that includes jiangsu sooning ladies football club who are themselves two-time chinese women's super league champions as well as the men's club and yet to those who are familiar with the inner workings of china's tumultuous top flight and the government's rocky relationship with the world's most popular sport this news is somehow simultaneously shocking but not at all surprising china's footballing project goes far beyond jiangsu ning and so too does china's footballing crisis which is the subject of today's video so forget about football in europe or the americas for a moment switch off from any existential dread surrounding the state of the planet and join me on a journey exploring the chaos surrounding the machinations of the beautiful game in a country where this website is banned in 2014 chinese president xi jinping set out his government's three-point plan for chinese football they did so in the form of a series of policy papers but the three targets outlined by china's new leader were for china to have 300 million children playing football regularly by 2020 that's almost six times the total population of england right there which they managed to achieve the next step is to have a chinese national team which is on par with east asia's current powerhouses of south korea and japan by 2030. so a team that can regularly qualify for the world cup finals and lastly for china to become one of world football's ultimate super powers by 2050 good enough to beat any other national team and competing to win the world cup the chinese super league was to become a central pillar of these plans with a strong domestic top flight considered to be integral in growing the popularity of the sport promoting investment and creating a clear pathway to china's future generation of footballers into a competitive league in the year before xi jinping came to power 2011 almost no one outside of asia had any reason to know anything about chinese football it was a country where teams sometimes went on pre-season tours that was about it though the league did have foreign players pre-2012 few were big names and even in china itself the league was best associated with scandal and corruption rather than footballing prowess china got its first major professional football league in 1994 the gla league which just so happened to coincide with the introduction of the five-day working week and increased time and resources for weekend leisure activities among the nation's city dwelling growing middle classes you see football has always been popular in china the ancient chinese game of kuju is often cited as the earliest form of association football and was recognized as such by disgraced former fifa president seth blatter football in its codified modern day form would arrive in china a few thousand years later via britain but china were at one time asia's strongest national team before china's communist revolution civil war and the ascension power of chairman mao china were east asian powerhouses particularly during the 1920s considered to be the nation's golden era china dominated the football discipline at the far eastern games spearheaded by leeway tong a native of british hong kong who is considered to be one of the finest asian footballers of all time to this day following the success of the ccp in taking control of china though or post world war ii depending upon how you wish to frame it china has consistently been one of world football's great underachievers there is a common complaint among football fans in china represented by the slogan 11 from 1.3 billion begging the question of how a nation of so many who care about football so much can consistently be so useless when it comes to the sport every leader of the ccp since mao and including the revolutionary who actually play football himself as a goalkeeper during his college days has sought to rectify this anomaly china has become the dominant force at the olympic games but they have only ever qualified for one world cup in 2002 where they lost every game and failed to score a single goal the gaa league made a bright start sponsored by marlborough the cigarette brand for the first five years of its existence and attracting an average attendance of over 17 000 fans in the league's first season by the early 2000s the league was faltering though and support was dwindling china's fa did away with the g8 league and launched the chinese super league in 2004 but the switch-up failed to have the desired impact interest in the league diminished following the re-launch and foreign and domestic audiences largely considered the league to be something of a farce corruption is a long-standing issue in china and the nation's new league was thought to be riddled with it there were allegations of illegal betting and match fixing frequent instances of violence among the small number of supporters who still attended games and instances of racism towards foreign players and particularly towards black players in many respects this was the state of play when xi jinping became china's new dictator immediately changes were made you may recall that it was in 2012 the yeji took office that the likes of didier drogba and nicosonelka signed for chinese super league outfit shanghai shenhua drogba signing fresh off the back of just having won the uefa champions league with chelsea they weren't the only ones though there was also frederick knute yakubu and world cup winning manager marcelo lippy among others meanwhile dario conker's arrival at guangzhou evergrande was said to put him among the 20 highest-paid footballers on the entire planet it is a trend which has continued ever since accelerated by the ccp's plans outlined in 2014 which came in light of some of china's worst international performances yet in the men's game i should clarify china failed to qualify for the 2014 world cup and that was followed by a humiliating 5-1 defeat to a very young thailand team in 2013. that defeat prompted considerable anger among supporters which spilt over into rights in the streets and calls for the chinese fa's president to resign they got their wish as yoon weeman was eventually booted out and replaced by former table tennis player chai zenhua results didn't improve though in 2016 supporters took to the streets once again after the national team lost one nil to warton syria in a 2018 world cup qualifier the syria team weren't even able to train or play in syria at the time due to the country's ongoing civil war clearly this was a challenge of epic proportions xi jinping is a man with epic resources and power at his disposal though a valid claim could be made for she being the most powerful individual on the planet as evidenced by the recent disappearance of alibaba founded jack ma for a number of months before he was shown in a clip from china's state media following the tech entrepreneur having made a number of critical comments about the ccp mar is the third richest person in china and the 20th richest person in the world if he can be silenced anyone can so when ji shin ping said he wanted to see investment in football he got it and not just from the state following the outlining of ji's plans in 2014 some of china's wealthiest individuals and companies began pouring their money into football at home and abroad jack ma's own business alibaba owns 40 of the csl's most successful club guangzhou evergrande now known simply as guangzhou real estate giants greenland group owns shanghai shenhua the cinebo group owns beijing guan and dalian wonder group owns dalian pro i could really go on overseas we have seen a wave of chinese cash flood into european clubs three premier league teams southampton west bromwich albion and wolverhampton wanderers are all majority owned by chinese businesses or billionaires meanwhile chinese investment company citic group acquired a 14 stake in manchester city in 2015 which prompted xi jinping to pay the club a visit that same year whilst on a state visit to the united kingdom it doesn't take a genius to figure out that perhaps not all of these billionaires are passionate about football and that some of them may just be caught in favour with g in fact it has even been theorized that xi's own love of the sport may just be a facade football is the global sport and is reportedly seen by the ccp as a gateway into foreign markets a potential source of national pride a platform to build a wider sports leisure and entertainment industry around for china's growing middle class and a way for china to earn greater international recognition and respect whether xi's love of the game is genuine or not all of these factors are likely to have played a key role in the prioritising of the sport over numerous other issues however cracks are emerging in g's plan which brings us back to zhang zhu sunning who actually renamed themselves as just zhang zhu shortly before the revelations emerged jianzu are or were owned by sooning appliance group who are 20 shareholders of sooning.com limited sooning.com is one of china's largest retailers with over 20 billion us dollars in annual revenue and following their success in the retail space the company branched out into one or two other businesses like streaming and marketing now they are looking to strip back from other industries though having just sold 23 of their assets which the company says is a long-term strategy so they are able to maintain a laser-like focus on their core retail business ending their investment in jiangsu fc and the club's associated women's team is thought to be part of this streamlining and having tried to find an investor for six months sooning appliance group finally pulled the plug just a few days ago and the teams seized all operations but why would one of china's largest companies and one of china's wealthiest individuals who is a former politician himself have wanted out of a team that just won the chinese super league and why wasn't there another business or billionaire just waiting to step in and fulfill a lifelong dream of owning a football club or at least trying to court favor with china's supreme leader well one reason might be that owning a chinese football club isn't a very profitable business in order to attract players clubs have had to offer foreign players eye watering contracts whilst revenues haven't risen as hoped as of the end of last season 11 of the world's 30 highest-paid footballers played their club football in china each earning between 280 000 and 575 000 pounds a week no premier league player comes close to earning as much as the likes of oscar hulk and paulinho reportedly do yet the league's total revenue remains dwarfed by the premier league and is roughly on par with the championship meanwhile average attendance is peaked back in 2016. there are one or two suggestions that xi and the ccp are already scaling back investment in football haven't been disappointed by the lack of impact that they have seen since outlining those initial plans in 2014. if g starts to lose interest then so too will china's businesses and billionaires many of whom likely never had the growth of football in china as their main priority this could have significant knock-on effects for football worldwide and in some respects it already has sooning.com the company jiangsu's former owners were shareholders of also owned pptv a streaming service who have the rights to broadcast the chinese super league the uefa champions league the bundesliga and more in china pptv also previously had the rights to broadcast the premier league in china in a deal worth more than 500 million pounds on an annual basis that made it the premier league's most lucrative overseas tv deal but in september the premier league pulled the plug on pptv's rights to broadcast over an unpaid 160 million payment given the struggles with covid the loss of this income came as a significant blow to premier league teams pptv also ended their broadcasting agreement with la liga in 2020 and suspended broadcasting of both the fa cup and even serie a in february 2021 i say even syria because sooning.com also sort of kind of own into milan who currently top the syria table inter are owned by sooning holdings group which belongs to sooning.com founder and the company's largest shareholder zhang jingdong though sooning holdings group is technically a separate entity to soon.com and is the private investment arm of xindong's business the likes of southampton and west brom both chinese owned have scaled back spending in recent years and to a lesser extent so too of wolves particularly in terms of their plans surrounding the redevelopment of molyneux there is not yet any suggestion that soon will pull all funding from inter as they have done with jinxing that would be pretty reckless given that intel are currently top of the syriac table and have significant commercial potential in their own right regardless of xi's updated outlook on football though suning have been seeking external investment in the club for the last six months it is a precarious situation both at home and abroad for chinese-owned football clubs one chinese super league team was dissolved in 2020 and there are already two of bits in the dust in 2021 prior to the start of next season including the reigning league champions inside china the league still has a reputation for corruption and the quality of china's domestic players has barely improved outside china players are likely to start treating a move to the chinese super league with even more suspicion if they cannot be sure that contract promises will be fulfilled and that owners are in it for the long haul the fallout of all this is really yet to develop though whether xi and the ccp have really given up on football or at least to what extent remains to be seen china's president may not have to answer at the ballot box he is in essence a president for life should he wish but he still wants to be popular the ccp have tied themselves to china's footballing project in a fashion that is difficult to reverse they announced their 2014 targets with such bravado that football-loving chinese citizens are holding them to them as promises the bond is so strong that when china's national scene fails fans blame politicians and xi as much if not more than they blame the managers or players who are written off as simply not being good enough rather than actively having done anything wrong in many respects then i have made this video at what is likely to be a seminal moment in the history of the chinese game right now the league appears to be in chaos i haven't even had time to mention shandong lunen getting kicked out of the asian champions league and there appears to be a real threat of state individual and businesses all pulling their investment from football clubs at home and abroad but on the flip side failure to see through his plans or at least be perceived to have done so would be politically very damaging to a man who doesn't like to be disliked so watch this space because the next 12 months may determine whether china our world champions by 2050 or whether they're still losing to syria uzbekistan and iraq thank you all for watching today's video before i leave you i just wanted to tell you about zheng ji who made his debut for china during this same year in which the country qualified for that only world cup in 2002. you may remember xi from his time in britain where he played for charlton athletic and celtic here he is with then prime minister gordon brown and manchester united player dongfeng zhu back in 2008. well xi is now 40 years old and he still captains china's biggest club guangzhou and he is still a full international i'm not sure whether that says more about the state of the chinese super league and the chinese national team or about the longevity of the former championship midfielder i suspect it is a bit of both but i just found that quite interesting so i thought i'd share it with all of you thank you as ever for tuning in i hope you enjoyed today's video whether you're watching by a vpn in china or elsewhere go ahead and hit the like button if you enjoyed today's video feel free to let me know your thoughts down below in the comments and make sure to subscribe to hrtc7s and click the little notification bell to ensure that you never 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Channel: HITC Sevens

Views: 816,369

Keywords: HITC Sevens, Football, Soccer, Chinese Super League, China, Jiangsu, Suning, Documentary, Premier League, Inter Milan, Serie A, HITC Sport, HITC, Sevens, Finances, Owners, Money, Tottenham, Barcelona, Paulinho, Bankrupt, Beijing, Jiangsu Suning, Manchester United, Liverpool

Id: kGlf6Uqs-ig

Length: 18min 9sec (1089 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 03 2021