Inside the next ten years Asian investment will drive world football.
That was the statement made recently by Tony Rallis who successfully made Trent Sainsbury Australia’s second-highest paid footballer by securing the defender a transfer to China’s high-profile Super League.
As a result of Ralli’s negotiations, Sainsbury will now pocket $3.5 million a year after tax. However that figure does not nearly match up to those associated with the league’s more high-profile recent investments which have caught the eye of the footballing world.
Since modern football was created in England, Europe has been at the heart of what now has become the world game. However as a result of seemingly unmatchable financial investment and governmental desire, is the world game soon to revolve around China?
A decade or so ago, Chinese football was still relatively unknown and insignificant to the global football community – even in China. The government at the time preferred to use the nation’s stadiums for storage rather than for playing football.
However now under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, China has promoted football to the forefront of the national agenda. Mr Jinping created and released a 50-point plan to transform China into a footballing powerhouse, the major goal being to “overhaul” the sport at every level.
Within a time frame of less than half a century, China plans to not only host and win a FIFA World Cup, but to also create a sporting economy with a net worth of $850 billion. This ambitious venture is designed to involve and benefit all that choose to be involved including foreign nations, their football clubs and players.
Beginning at the grassroots level president Jinping aims to increase the number of specialist football schools in China from 20,000 to 50,000. He plans to do this by attracting investors to invest in the nations schools and local footballing clubs.
Furthermore he hopes to integrate Chinese youth players who are studying with their international counterparts by encouraging Chinese investors to purchase international clubs, as they have already done in France and the Netherlands. Coinciding with the plan’s release, the president stated that he “expects” Chinese businesses to invest in football.
The Chinese domestic league is on the verge of rivalling Europe’s top leagues. Perhaps not yet in quality but certainly in box office appeal as with each passing month more and more high profile players choose to leave in order to fill their pockets in China.
Currently 19.8 per cent of the Chinese Super Leagues players hail from foreign nations and this percentage will certainly increase.
This includes the Argentine Ezequiel Lavezzi, who currently earns just shy of $17 million dollars a year, the Ivorian Gervinho who has tripled his income and now earns $9.7 million a year and the Brazilian star Hulk who earns a massive $25 million a year. The league’s most recent high profile signing, Graziano Pelle will pocket over $500,000 a week. This makes him the sixth highest paid player in the world.
Furthermore it has been reported that one of the clubs attempted to sign Gonzalo Higuain from Napoli, offering him over $1 million a week. The player and Napoli refused the offer. If this trend continues, the top competitions may start to lack stars.
Does Australia fit into this footballing revolution? Of course it does. After his recent time spent in China, Tony Rallis also added that he is “certain” Chinese investors will look to purchase A-League clubs and then subsequently lure high profile players to the land down under.
It is believed that the Newcastle Jets are currently being courted by Chinese investors.
China’s footballing plan also includes a strategy to integrate Chinese students who play football with Australia’s youth players and students in order to assist the Chinese in their understanding and speaking of the English language. Would this type of foreign investment truly benefit Australian football?
China is now highly relevant in the footballing world. As of February 2016 the Chinese Super League had spent $360 million during the winter transfer window – more than the the English Premier League.
This demonstrates the financial power of Chinese football. President Jinping views dominating football as another way to assert global power, but how will the other powerful footballing nations respond?
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
With a couple of exceptions, yes. It appears to be the approach adopted whenever the government decides a sport becomes a matter of national interest, though the high level of private investment in football offers a level of variety that has not been afforded other sports that rely almost entirely upon the public purse.
Post hoc
Guest
Celtic lost a game to a Gibraltar team that means according to you, Celtic are a crap football team. Italy lost against Korea in 1966, that means Italy have no hope of winning a world cup Albania beat West Germany in 1967, no way could the West Germans ever do well at football let alone win the world cup in 8 years Mister football, I suggest you might not have a clue, but I suspect that doesn't bother you
Post hoc
Guest
Damn I should have kept reading, yes, you are correct
Post hoc
Guest
I'm with Punter on this one, the academies and schools they are building are massive, and will churn through a lot of players, looking for the nugget, BUT what is also not being mentioned is the 'other' sorts of academies they building, Guangzhou have built an $80 million dollar football school, but they have also signed a deal with Atletico????? I think to send X number of kids each year to their Academy, ie they find the nugget in China and send them overseas to polish them up (now that is 1 Club doing that) so the Chinese understand that and to short circuit the system they will send them elsewhere to refine their skills. Hence why China invests in the Portuguese 2nd Division, why they bought the Jets. If you ask me another club will buy into Germany or Belgium if you want good defenders you don't get taught by the Spanish, you get taught by Germans LOL. The chinese are playing the long game, 20-40 year plans
Midfielder
Guest
Ben would the same apply to sport in general in China.
Midfielder
Guest
Waz A subject close to your heart ... nice read about sports governance in Australia ... very very very long. https://abr.gov.au/ABRWeb/Apply/Abn/DeclarationCreate.aspx?Task=1b75f924-b07d-40f0-a11a-e9c6582d8a06&NavGraph=ApplyForAbn&View=DeclarationCreate&pid=71&js=1
j binnie
Guest
Mid - One has to adopt a wait and see attitude to Roar's overseas signings for their record in that department in recent years has not been what one would say highly succesful ,perhaps Berisha, Broich and Corona being the exceptions rather than the rule. Hervas,2 Millers, Malcolm, Nakajima, Da Costa, Hyuk-Su, Yuning, Kurtisi, and Kaluderovic,being just a few who have come and gone without any major impact.. Get the point?. Cheers jb.
Bob
Guest
Maybe that's why the Chinese started to invest billions in to the local game from academies upwards. But short of inventing a time machine they cant go back and change those result. What are you saying? because they lost to Hong Kong and Burma in the past they'll always lose to them in the future despite the massive investments being made?
Nicholas De Pasquale
Roar Pro
Hey Justin, thank you much appreciated... You're blog is also interesting.
Nicholas De Pasquale
Roar Pro
Thank you :)
Arnold Krewanty
Guest
The over paid England national team don't lose to powerhouses such as Hong Kong and Burma - the Overpaid Chinese national team does.
Ben of Phnom Penh
Roar Guru
It is a nice article, Nicholas, and one that has people talking. The global football economy is certainly being effected by the domestic investment in Chinese football as well as the foreign direct investment in international clubs from Chinese investors. This has been quite a boon for Australian professional players as the 3+1 AFC ruling plus our greater familiarity with the region means that many clubs are looking for proven Australian players to fill the roster. Any changes to the global football economy that results in an increased demand for our professional athletes is a boon. One risk that exists is the lack of support for social football that provides the layer of interest from which volunteers and latent talent emerges. This is important as it provides a wide base from which talent can be sourced (playing, coaching and administrative), as identifying talent at a very young age and nurturing it is an extremely low return affair which can dilute China's greatest advantage, the sheer size of its population.
Midfielder
Guest
Just thinking it could have been grow to 150 to 180 million rather than grow by 150 to 180 million. But I think it was grow by ...
Midfielder
Guest
Its not only China the J -League just signed a massive streaming deal on top of their other broadcast deals. India is starting to spend big as is Korea. I read hhhmmm about two maybe two and a half years ago that in Asia as it gets more wealthy there will be an explosion in player numbers... going purely from memory it was estimated over the next 20 year that somewhere between 150 to 180 million new players. Asian has I think 4.3 billion people and both India and China are experiencing rapid growth. Exciting times ahead but for Australia to remain competitive we need to increase revenue a fair bit.
Sydneysider
Guest
Yep, China are crap at soccer. Maybe they should invest in AFL and dominate the world.
Nemesis
Guest
Does the current quality of the Chinese National Team give an indication about the future? We only have to look at the 2016 European Championships to realise the flawed logic from such analysis. As recently as September 2011, Iceland and Wales who were Quarter Finalists and Semi-Finalists respectively at Euro 2016, were ranked lower than China. Of course, it's possible those mocking China's quality aren't familiar with European football so they may be surprised to know Wales and Iceland national teams were ranked well below China only five years ago. Regardless, it's odd to read facetious comments about the quality of the current Chinese National Team during this discussion. This discussion is about the future of Chinese football. Not the current state. Where does the Chinese President say this current Chinese National Team will win the World Cup? Rather the Chinese President has given his political and financial support to a 50 Point Plan to develop football in China. It's worthwhile investing time doing background reading on the subject to understand China's 50 Point Plan for football, to avoid making uneducated comments about this issue. It is generally accepted by those who have good understanding of football development that Chna's 50 Point Plan aims for China to be a football superpower by 2050. The current Chinese team will be close to 60 years old by then, so I can't imagine what relevance the quality of the current Chinese national team has to the potential for China's football in 2050?
pauly
Guest
Great success!
pauly
Guest
Brazil may have a chance, but mismanagement by the CBF (that is sadly now being evidenced by a mediocre national team) will prevent that from being a reality.
Mister Football
Roar Guru
I note in China's most recent outing they lost at home to the glorious nation of Kazakhstan. I'm thinking there's a very big jump from that to winning the WC.
Punter
Guest
Like I said I don't disagree with you. However, I repeat my last sentence, this time in English. You have unlimited funds, you have over 1 billion people, you need to find 11 players with the x factor in instinct & decision making.