Rise, Control and Fall: The Chinese Soccer Paradigm Shift

professional football Chinese It has undergone a radical change in recent years, going from multimillion-dollar expenses to much more restrained investments, influenced by control measures and increased by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A metamorphosis that has taken away at least 24 professional clubs since 2020, disappeared amid cases of corruption, bankruptcies and lack of interest among their former owners, who in their day dominated the news for their breaking records in terms of salaries and transfers in the world of football.

Although this change in the paradigm has not only caused the demise of these teams, but also the fall into the abysses of the once undisputed kings of the Chinese Super League with eight league titles in the previous decade, Guangzhou FC, formerly known as the surname Evergrande of its majority shareholders.

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE GUANGZHOU EVERGRANDE

Under the ownership of the Chinese real estate giant Evergrande since 2010, after buying the team for 100 million yuan (14.5 million dollars, 13.7 million euros) from Guangzhou Pharmaceutical, the club was promoted to the top flight in its first try with its new owners.

Since then, with two Asian Champions League winners along the way, the administration has invested a total of $324.58 million in transfers over ten years, with the ceiling set at $44.39 million paid to Atlético. from Madrid for the pass of Colombian Jackson Martínez in 2016.

Figures that contrast with the zero spending on transfers in the last three seasons and that explain, to a certain extent, the team’s relegation at the end of the 2022 campaign with a squad valued at 3.69 million dollars according to the Transfermarkt portal. .

The Evergrande group, which accumulated liabilities in excess of 300,000 million dollars in the middle of last year, also began construction of a stadium for 100,000 spectators estimated at 1,878 million dollars, but in August 2022 it confirmed that it was canceling the project and would receive a compensation of 818 million dollars to face the debts contracted by the works.

Although high hopes were placed on the largest soccer academy on the planet, which housed more than 2,500 young soccer players and 50 training camps after an investment of 185 million dollars and with which the president of China, Xi JinpingI hoped that one day “I won the World Cup for them”.

Ten years after it opened its doors, no player trained on those grounds to “reinvigorate Chinese football and cultivate future sports stars” He has reached the first team to stay and lead it.

LARGE DEFICIT INVESTMENTS

The case of Guangzhou FC It is only the most recent, although possibly the one that best represents the rise and fall of the now broken toys of various investors who responded to President Xi’s call to relaunch home football with the aim of qualifying China for a World Cup, first, to organize the tournament afterwards, and win it as a cherry on top before 2050.

The story of Jiangsu FC, owned by the Suning conglomerate, is also significant in the situation of Chinese football, after spending more than 177 million dollars in its last five years of life and especially 106 million dollars in the 2016 season of the championship alone. Asian.

The now-defunct club, champion of the 2020 edition of the Super League, announced just three months after winning the trophy that it was suspending its operations immediately due to the financial problems that its owner was going through.

Tianjin FC, owned by the Quanjian traditional medicine company, which in its last four years has spent more than 166 million dollars, or Chongqing FC, owned by the Dangdai technology company, are two other examples of large investments, many times more interested in self-promotion than in the development of the beautiful game, which ended with the dissolution of the Super League clubs.

More similar to the situation of Guangzhou FC has been that of Hebei FC, which in its day was allowed to hire Ezequiel Lavezzi and Javier Mascherano, but who were relegated this season after starting with less than three points following a sanction for non-payment of salaries to their players and failing to add any digits throughout the year.

STATE CONTROL OFF THE FIELD OF PLAY

All this spending frenzy caused the Chinese authorities to want to control the short-term stability of professional soccer in the country with a series of measures that stopped investment dead.

In 2017, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) approved a 100% tax on the transfer of foreign players for more than 6.4 million dollars to avoid “inflate prices” Y “look for short-term successes”.

The following decision, taken two years later, limited the salary cap for these footballers to 3.3 million net dollars, seeking to prevent situations like those of the Argentine Carlos Tevez in 2017, which even today continues to cause resentment among fans. Chinese, since he stated that he was “seven months of vacation in China” for 40 million dollars.

This went hand in hand with the ban on “surnames” commercials within the nomenclature of the clubs, so Evergrande, Quanjian and Fortune, who were looking for promotion with their investments, had to give way to the more traditional “Football Club”.

Already during the pandemic in 2020, the CFA limited the annual spending of each squad to 75.4 million dollars, thus laying all the foundations, in its second attempt, to carry out the plan with which they hope to bring Chinese football to the highest in 2050.

Source: EFE.