While most stadiums around the world are vibrating again with the screams of the fans after the forced break due to the Corona crisis, in China they remain empty and the future of football is becoming increasingly uncertain. The recent decision to relinquish its status as host of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup scheduled for summer 2023 has dampened the expectations of millions of fans in the world’s most populous country. Without the credentials organizing the event before FIFA would bestow upon him, the dream of hosting a World Cup at the Asian giants seems to have been parked much farther away.
The AFC reported in a statement on the 14th that China has declined to host the Asian Cup, citing “extraordinary circumstances caused by the pandemic”. 24 teams had to compete in the continental tournament from June 16 to July 16, 2023 in ten major Chinese cities, which would pose an even greater logistical challenge than the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics bubble.
China has kept its borders virtually closed since March 2020 and continues to apply centralized quarantines and lockdowns. It is estimated that 182 million people are currently isolated in about thirty locations due to the Omicron outbreak the nation has been facing since March, the worst in the entire pandemic. Shanghai, for example, has been in lockdown for about two months, and authorities won’t open their hands to its more than 25 million residents until June.
This conservative answer has major implications. The Asian giant has invested around 31,660 million yuan (around 4,483 million euros) in the construction of ten new arenas in which the games are to be played. This includes the completely remodeled Beijing Workers’ Stadium, which with a capacity of 68,000 spectators was to host the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the final. This payout was outlined as a logical step before a dream that President Xi Jinping has publicized on more than one occasion: that China should host the world’s greatest sporting event.
“Hosting the Asian Men’s Championship in 2023 was another strong argument for China to submit a bid with strong prospects for the 2030 or 2034 World Cup,” said David Ramírez, a Beijing-based sportswriter for 15 years. “It would have been the venue for the second time in this century and if the 2004 Cup was followed by its only World Cup qualifier, it is not unreasonable to think that the desire of the majority was to roll out the red carpet for the 2030 World Cup in China or China 2034,” he adds.
Although participation in the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan fueled football’s popularity in the country – despite the fact that China did not advance beyond the group stage and did not score a single goal – the new era began a decade later with the hiring of Marcello Lippi, to to run the Guangzhou Evergrande, owned by the now heavily indebted Chinese real estate company of the same name. His €10m a year salary would open the Pandora’s box of waste and multi-million dollar contracts that have shaped the Chinese Super League.
Backed by powerful investors poised to realize the Xi government’s goal (to make China a continental soccer powerhouse by 2030 and a world soccer powerhouse by 2050), Chinese teams spent the most money in the world in 2017, reaching €400m for football Transfers to the winter market. Back then, three of the five highest-paid soccer players in the world played in the Chinese Super League. The ranking is led by Ezequiel Lavezzi (Hebei Fortune), followed by Carlos Tévez (Shanghai Shenhua), also an Argentinian based in China, and fourth place by Brazilian Oscar dos Santos (Shanghai SIPG). The top five were completed by Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) and Lionel Messi (FC Barcelona) in third and fifth.
“In China, they expected football to reach its technical level and international results in no time. It wasn’t just about players in decline who were offered millionaire contracts, some, like Belgian Yannick Carrasco or French Anthony Modeste, arrived at the best moment of their careers, under penalty, as some claimed, from the national team to keep calls out,” comments Ramírez.
non-viable accounts
Alarmed by unsustainable accounts (2019 league profit was €116m compared to €121m spent), Chinese lawmakers took matters into their own hands by introducing more taxes and salary caps. The new policies coming to the blow of the pandemic have left teams drowning in debt. According to local media, 11 of the 16 top division clubs experienced financial difficulties last November. The most vivid example of this roller coaster is the Jiangsu Sunning. Due to their default situation, the 2020 Super League champions were banned from the Asian Champions League the following season and forced to disband as a club due to a national ban.
“That the three who qualified for the current Champions League put on the most disastrous performances of all time shows that Chinese football is going through its darkest hour. Guangzhou FC, the country’s flagship clubs (eight league titles and two champions), were eliminated on the first substitution with a disastrous record of six games played, all lost, and an anemic goal difference of 0-0. 24. That kind of debacle is the result of the remarkable brain drain that has occurred as a result of salary restructuring and Covid containment measures in China,” Ramírez points out.
If it’s any consolation for Chinese fans, women’s football has green laurels. Olympic and world runners-up, the Steel Roses recently reclaimed the continental throne by adding their ninth title. However, David Ramírez reiterates the pessimism felt after his resignation from organizing the AFC Cup: “The World Cup, they will have to get used to the idea, it’s a floating topic”.
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