After breaking the market with millionaire signatures and unprecedented salaries, Chinese football has monopolized all coverage. Five years later, the story changed so much that the current Super League champion could not score for next season because of his financial problems. This is the panorama of the league he has reached Juan Fernando Quintero, the Shenzhen.
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Alarms were raised in China in late February, when the team that won the league in 2020, Jiangsu Suning, announced that it is suspending its operations, as it cannot cope with the debt problems that have prevented it from paying part of the salaries of its players during the campaign.
The coach, the Romanian Olaroiu, and his biggest star, the Brazilian Teixeira, had already abandoned the ship after the title due to the implications.
Its current owner, the Suning conglomerate, has been forced to sell 23% of its shares to obtain liquidity, although its founder has already warned that they will reduce expenses unrelated to its main activity, that of distribution.
These plans not only meant that the now-named Jiangsu FC is on the verge of disappearing – only two years after it was supposed to be on the verge of signing Gareth Bale – if it does not find a short-term buyer, but they also have had an echo in Italy because Inter Milan is controlled by that company.
And in England, the Premier League ended up canceling a million-dollar broadcasting contract with Suning’s PPTV subsidiary after failing to meet agreed payments.
Political problem
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According to local media, Jiangsu – which in recent years has had Ramires or Miranda among its ranks and Fabio Capello on the bench – is for sale for one yuan, but whoever receives it must take over the debt, which would mean a higher cost. well over 60 million in the first season alone
“The fact that no one wants to take over the club is not a very good sign for the future of Chinese football,” warns Cameron Wilson, founder of the Chinese football portal Wild East Football.
The analyst explains to Efe that the last minute appearance of a buyer is still “a possibility”, because the situation is “too ridiculous even by the standards of Chinese football”, but “time is running out”. “It’s one of the worst things that has happened in the history of Chinese football,” he complains. How did Chinese football manage to get into this situation just five years after the government announced a plan to become a global football superpower by 2050?
“I guess there was a political change and someone said you have to go down a few steps in the football project,” says Wilson, who recalls that the plan “made everyone think it was a great opportunity,” especially big companies. , who believed they could “get political favors by investing in football.”
Asked about the influence of the coronavirus, the Scotsman completely rejects it: “Clubs didn’t make money before anyway, they can’t survive without a company that pays the bills back”.
In his view, China wanted international recognition, but the lack of progress in local football – reflected in the team’s recent failures – would have made the authorities start to be ashamed of excessive spending on transfers and salaries. In fact, in the last two years, the CFA, the national federation, has announced successive reforms to prevent clubs from continuing to spend millions on international stars, considering it totally unsustainable.
“China fails”
Jiangsu is not the only case: last year, Tianjin Quanjian, a team that Pato, Luís Fabiano or Witsel went through, disappeared after breaking off ties with its sponsor due to a legal scandal, and this year many teams survive due to state investments.
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And this only in the Superliga: in the second and third divisions, more than a dozen teams were expelled last year because they did not meet the financial requirements.
Even more clubs will disappear, according to Wilson. The expert believes that the “extraordinary” level of political interference in football has had a lot to do with this decline: “Football people are either not the ones who make the decisions, or they can’t make them because they always have to take politics in football driving, I would not see a fraction of all this ridiculous. ”
But for now, in Chinese football, “everything can change from one moment to the next” according to the will of someone strong: “And then all the plans must change and all the billions that have been spent have been suddenly wasted.”
The founder of Wild East Football believes that the authorities did not understand how difficult their goals were: “They started throwing money, but there was no plan. China believed that building football is like building bridges or railways. Although it is still difficult to predict what will happen to football in China, one thing is clear: “They are fatal.”
Wilson, who has been watching football in the Asian country for two decades, doesn’t even think it will be possible for the team to be one of the best in the world by 2050, as Beijing wanted.
And neither does that Drogba, Mascherano, Oscar, Hulk, Lavezzi, Executioner, Duck, Anelka or Ramires still wanting to pursue a career in the Superliga: “I don’t think we will see this type of player coming to China again until the finances (clubs) are more rational. And it will take a long time. We are talking about 20 years . ”
EFE