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In 2008, I was at Shanghai Shenhua’s clubhouse watching an Under 13 Chinese team defeat an Under-11 Japanese team due to being able to kick the ball further and harder.
It didn’t seem quite right. Four years later I was back as Nicolas Anelka was training next to an academy clubhouse with classrooms that were was literally falling apart. That didn’t feel quite right either.
This time, though, China is different. That is not to say all of the big-money deals being made in the market make sense. Many are overpriced, but then emerging teams in emerging leagues have to pay over the odds in the global market if they want big names. That is just the way it is for China – at the moment.
Some players will be heading back west before too long and these will be gleefully seized upon by some as proof that this is a flash in the pan. But short stints have been long been common in East Asia when it comes to foreign imports. Bigger salaries will make life more comfortable but if you don’t settle then you don’t settle.
There have been some, perhaps hopeful, doubts expressed over whether the spending is sustainable, and while bad things can always happen to individual clubs such thinking seriously underestimates the money, the will and the potential that exists in the world’s second-biggest economy. There is investment at all levels of the game and coming from all sectors: private public, national, regional.
Ultimately, the rise of the Chinese Super League is good for Australia and not least because the improvement in the domestic game, as demonstrated by Shandong Luneng this week, raises the level in Asia.
It offers much for Aussie players. The Chinese league was never as bad as it was assumed to be, but now it is the destination in Asia. And then given the fact that many clubs are signing big name foreign attackers, A-League teams could do worse, for commercial and playing reasons, than look at some of the younger Chinese strikers and playmakers who are suddenly finding a regular starting spot receding into the distance.
The more China turns to its own domestic game, the bigger role the country will play in Asian football and that means there are, as Melbourne Victory just demonstrated, sponsorship dollars to be won and investment opportunities to be sold.
China is also showing that marquees can make a difference if it is something developed across a several clubs, though this is obviously easier said than done.
In recent years, the increasing number of big stars has helped create an excitement around the league that was not there before. The imports help make the league more marketable and exciting. It attracts more fans and improves the atmosphere. It improves the teams, helps them succeed in Asia which in turn more coverage and prestige.
Talk of top-down spending is only half the story. The big stars come, help (well some do) the locals improve, the league gets better and the brand grows. That’s when you get the television deal. The new Chinese Super League, even before the recent rash of arrivals, was already ready for reams of renminbi as the amount paid by broadcasters has jumped from AUS $1.9 million in 2015 to around AUS$345 million in 2016. Even Tim Cahill, who is right when he said recently that there is plenty more to come, is incapable of such a leap.
It immediately shows the brand-conscious/obsessed young Chinese who have often in the past dismissed local football that it has worth. It also spreads the wealth a little more with some of the money in a five-year deal, that will not be far off $2 billion, going to teams outside the top tier.
If those a long way down the ladder can pay decent wages then for the first time, the job of a professional footballer will have much more appeal for kids and, crucially, their parents as the league continues to grow in stature.
The big problem of Chinese football has long been low participation rates among the young. This is starting to change. The money going into the grassroots means more and better opportunities. What is going on at the top is also hugely important.
For Australia there’s more. The country has long been on the periphery of world football. As the balance of power shifts slowly eastwards (Japan and South Korea can help if they ever work out how to react to the rise of China) then it moves ever closer to Australia, bringing opportunity with it.
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