EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: The Rise of Chinese Football
In order to understand the way Chinese football has been evolving over the last few years, we sat down with Alain Wang, Italy correspondent of Chinese paper Titan Sport.
PLEASE NOTE: This interview was released on January 2016 on Italian version of calciomercato.com before Jackson Martinez completed his move to Shanghai Shenhua (maybe now we know a bit more about Jorge Mendes’ plan for the country)
Jiangsu Suning have broken into the market, but before January almost no one had a clue about who they were. Can you tell something more about them?
“They are a club from Nanjing, but they don’t have a big club tradition. Before they finished second in 2012 and won the Chinese Cup last year, they had always battled to avoid relegation. This past December they were acquired by local company Suning - an electrical retailer group that had sold 19.9% of their stakes to Chinese group Alibaba back in 2014. Since then, Alibaba have been trying to change Suning’s strategies to amplify their marketing. Football is actually one of the best means of communication out there, and they’ve targeted European football's big names straight away.”
What about Luiz Adriano’s scuppered transfer?
“Rumors from China suggest that Luiz Adriano has raised his economic demands, but I believe that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Chinese directors of football are lacking of experience, especially when it comes to closing these kind of deals. In addition, there must have been a misunderstanding there, as bonuses play a big part in every contract in China, while the biggest slice of a European contract is represented by the fixed income.”
Are Chinese clubs worried about the fact that big players could become tired of Chinese Super League, and could leave the club before the end of their contracts? Alberto Gilardino and Alessandro Diamanti did something similar last year… “It can happen. Didier Drogba, by the way, left Shanghai Shenhua because the club failed to pay his salary, while Seydou Keita was disappointed with his team’s performances. The cases of Gilardino and Diamanti are a bit different. They wanted to leave, but Guangzhou Evergrande also wanted to replace them with new Brazilian players as they are the ones who have the biggest impact in China.”
Someone says that the Chinese Super League will reach the same level of the MLS in a few years, do you agree?
“If we look back to five or six years ago, Chinese clubs were only signing average Brazilian players or ex top-class footballers who were edging closer to retirement. After a short while they understood that those kinds of player were not raising the level of the league, so they started signing players who are still playing at a high level in Europe. In addition, they only used to sign free agents, whilst now they can afford paying the player’s full price tag. That’s another big step forward. Right now, no target is too big for Chinese football.”
China already proved during the Olympic games that if they want to invest in a sport, they usually get important results in a short period of time. Why is this not happening with football?
“Because we have made the wrong investments. Clubs started building the house from the roof, without any foundation. Take Chinese clubs’ academies and youth teams, for instance. At this level we are underdeveloped. Actually, the situation is tragic. Not a great deal of people are playing football at the moment, and the ones that are aren't being given the right tools. If clubs decide to invest in this area, we may develop further, otherwise it’ll be only show-biz.”
Is the Chinese government involved in this business?
“I don’t think so. They are really interested in developing the sport inside China, so that more people will actually play it in the future. But I don’t believe they give economic assistance to clubs in order to bring in players.”
Do they – at least – incentivize big companies to buy football clubs?
“No, but the opposite thing can happen. In other words, we can assume that if a company invests big money to buy a local team, it does it for the good of the locals, to create jobs and to entertain them, but they can also do it to be in the position to ask favors of the local government. Something like: ‘I invest money locally, but you have to give me something back’. We can assume this will or is happening, but we can’t prove it.”
What about middlemen, agents and directors, is there any kind of professionalization under this point of view?
“We have to divide the question into two parts. The first one concerns club’s directors. Marcello Lippi has played a vital role in building and training Chinese directors. When he was appointed as Guangzhou Evergrande manager, he did not only take care of the tactical part, he also helped the development of the club’s front office. It comes as no surprise that Guangzhou Evergrande’s directors are the most professional in Chinese football right now. Think that the first Bosman was made in 2007, when a Chinese player moved to the South Korean league thanks to his Italian agent Oberto Petricca. From that date Chinese sides have been offering multi-year contracts to their players.
As far as agents are concerned, Mr. Li is the most powerful one right now. He is Chinese, but holds a Brazilian passport. Mr. Li is considered the best because he’s the one who brings Brazilian footballers to China. As I said before, they are the ones that settle in better in the country.”
Is there any non-Chinese broker who is entering this new market?
“It depends. China is a huge country, so there’s no one who can control it all. Clubs’ boards also change very rapidly, so it’s very difficult to have everything under control. Jorge Mendes, by the way, has just ‘landed’ in China, signing an agreement with a group called Fosun, but we still don’t what Mr. Mendes’ plans are*. He might be thinking of bringing in some of his clients, or he could only be planning to develop Cristiano Ronaldo or James Rodrigez's images in China.”
The Calciomercato.com staff
Marco Gori
Edoardo Dalmonte
Lorenzo Bettoni
Pippo Russo
