China battles to restore tarnished reputation

IN FOCUS: SOCCER IN ASIANicolas Anelka's arrival at Shanghai Shenhua has helped lift the gloom on the terraces, but corruption and scandals still cast a shadow over the sport, writes CLIFFORD COONANin Beijing

NICOLAS ANELKA may be expensive and past his prime, but the arrival of the French striker is what the legions of fans on the terraces of China’s soccer stadiums have been waiting for. This is a real star with Premiership credentials, who can give Chinese soccer a lift after years of graft, scandal and constant humiliation of the national side.

“Anelka is a top player, China hasn’t had players like this before. His arrival will improve the level of the Super League, improve the kind of acquisitions the league makes,” said Zhang Lu, manager and vice-president of Beijing Guoan.

“Expectations are suddenly high about the future of Chinese football. But it could also lead to a bubble in the football economy if clubs spend money in a big way. And Anelka is very expensive,” said Zhang, who is one of the best-known experts on Chinese football, famous for his commentary on Italian football.

Expensive is right. The 32-year-old is reportedly on a two-year contract at Shanghai Shenhua (which translates as “The Flower of Shanghai”) worth over €240,000 per week, making him the dearest football import China has seen.

The stars of the Premiership, Serie A, the Bundesliga and La Liga had better start brushing up on their Mandarin Chinese.

Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United and Arsenal, all the big clubs have come to China in the past few years for summer tours and to play exhibition matches and build up support for their respective domestic leagues, and sell a few jerseys as well.

At the Italian Super Cup in July, at the Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium in Beijing, AC Milan took on Inter Milan and it was a sea of red with huge support for the Rossoneri – teams that wear red are traditionally popular in Communist China. There were round boos every time Inter Milan were mentioned. There were even fights between Chinese fans of the two sides. Passions were high.

With this kind of devotion in evidence in the world’s most populous nation, the Anelka deal is the logical next step in building the game here, as this is about taking China’s domestic league to a new level.

China has more than 100 billionaires, so it is no surprise to see Chinese tycoons getting in on the act. The Frenchman may be just the first in a wave of imports into the Chinese league as cash-rich entrepreneurs start to spend in the manner of Russian oligarchs and Emirati billionaires.

The owner of Shanghai Shenhua is Zhu Jun, a 45-year-old online gaming and IT billionaire who bought Shenhua in 2007. The club has had a mixed run since he stepped in, but the Anelka deal shows he is serious about raising the club’s profile in Shanghai, China’s biggest city and financial capital.

There is real excitement about Anelka’s imminent arrival at the Hongkou Stadium.

“If Ronaldinho and Didier Drogba came as well, then next year’s Super League would look very good, and it would let the Chinese players learn a few things. I hope this makes Chinese football better,” wrote one fan on his blog.

On the club’s website are pictures of Anelka in the club jersey. It also features a Transformer-like cyborg carrying a laser gun. A definite, if odd, statement of intent.

There have been big names in China before – former England international Paul Gascoigne played four games and scored two goals for Gansu Tianma back in 2002, but he was long past his peak.

The Anelka deal is significant because he is still playing in the top flight in one of the world’s major leagues. His Chelsea team-mate Drogba has also been linked to a Chinese move.

“We at Beijing Guoan won’t follow the wind, but we will buy the right stars at the right price. If the price is right, we would also consider buying someone like Drogba,” said Zhang.

This year’s champions Guangzhou Evergrande are splashing the cash. The southern Chinese club spent €6 million on Brazilian strikers Cleo from Partizan Belgrade and Muriqui from Atletico Mineiro, and €8 million to bring Argentina’s Dario Conca from Fluminense. They want to spend over €80 million next season.

“With Anelka joining the Super League, it’s likely that other clubs will follow, there are already signs that it is happening. But we are concerned about how this will continue. Some clubs in the league are poorly run. If they start to spend big to buy stars, it could jeopardise their future,” said Zhang.

The national team remains a big problem. People here moan constantly how China failed again to qualify for the next World Cup in 2014 and say an influx of foreign stars is not going to help improve the domestic.

Cai Zhenhua, China’s deputy sports minister, said there were “systematic” problems in Chinese soccer.

“We were far behind the international level in many aspects including the soccer population, the training regimen and the professional league,” said Cai.

It particularly hurts that neighbours and regional rivals Japan and South Korea consistently perform well internationally and have healthy domestic leagues.

Corruption has done terrible damage to the game, especially the bribed referees known as “black whistles” who have committed outrageous acts such as insisting on free-kicks being retaken until the right team scored. Sponsors have deserted the game, and state broadcaster CCTV refused to broadcast Super League games.

“The corruption has been so serious we worried about whether the system would keep working. Recently we also warned the China FA to come up with new policies, or graft could return.

“With more legal input and with better monitoring of the law, we can root out corruption within the China FA and in the world of football,” said Zhang.

In a recent court case, one of China’s top referees Huang Junjie confessed to receiving bribes to fix two international friendlies, one in 2009 between Sydney FC and Shanghai Shenhua, and Manchester United’s 6-0 friendly win over Shenzhen FC in 2007.

Over 20 former referees and other officials are in court as part of the crackdown on corruption. Among them is the former head referee of the Super League, Zhang Jianqiang, who faces charges of nearly €320,000.

Some confessions have been truly alarming, with China FA officials taking backhanders from players who wanted to be named to the national team – a practice widespread among league clubs also.

Grassroots football is in a terrible state. The China Daily says just 7,000 people are officially registered with the CFA, compared to 650,000 in the early 1990s.

On the plus side, attendance at China Super League games is stable, averaging around 10,000. At Beijing Guoan, the average is around 30,000 per league game.

In July this year, Wang Jianlin, head of the Dalian Wanda property company, signed a deal with the China FA to spend 500 million yuan (€61 million) over three years to boost soccer in China, with a particular focus on getting youngsters playing football.

Wang is funding a project called “Future Stars”, which each year offers 100 talented players aged between 15 and 17 with opportunities to play overseas for two to three years in places like Spain, Germany, Brazil, Italy and France.

Education is becoming seriously competitive in China, and it is hard to convince ambitious parents that they need to let their children play football rather than hit the books after a long day at school.

Restoring football’s tarnished reputation would go a long way to boosting the number of young people playing soccer regularly. Former China national team captain Hao Haidong said Wang’s investment was “the springtime for China soccer”.

“Nowadays, I think there are at most 10 out of a thousand schools in China that support students to play soccer,” he said.

“Everybody knows children need a good atmosphere and environment to discover their talents in music and painting. In fact, it is the same in soccer.”

Wang’s sponsorship will include referee training, and he also hopes to bring in a top-class international coach to revive the national team, on a three-year contract worth about 40 million yuan (€4.9 million).

“I am not a saviour. I am just an entrepreneur who still has passion for soccer and hope to do something. If China’s soccer population increases to 700,000 or 800,000 in three years, then our cooperation will be successful,” Wang said.

Last season, the reputation of Chinese domestic football was at such a low that the season began without a sponsor or broadcaster.

For the new season starting in March, the average budget of each of the 16 Super League clubs will increase to about €15.5 million, and the state broadcaster has agreed to resume showing matches.

While the Russians and the Emiratis have oil, the money in the Chinese football comes from real estate. In 2009, Guangzhou were relegated from the Super League over a match-fixing scandal, but this year the club won the league by 15 points after heavy investment by a property company, Evergrande.

With dozens of senior soccer officials up on corruption charges, many in the game hope that the current crackdown will help the game become viable again. So far the scandal has claimed the president of the Chinese FA, Xie Yalong, and his successor, Nan Yong.

Getting access to reliable figures in China is always a problem. According to Fifa, China has the biggest football population in the world with 26 million. But the China FA said that in 2011, there were 8,000 registered football players. But not everyone would be registered with the Chinese FA, and the figure from Fifa is about 710,000 registered players, ranking China 12th in the world.

Broadcast rights for the English Premier League have had a tough couple of years. Until last year, the rights were held by Tiansheng TV, a station run by state-owned Guangdong Provincial Television, but it was not popular, as it was difficult to access for ordinary punters and eventually the company went bankrupt. The current broadcast rights are held by Yadi Technology and there are some free-to-view games on local channels, but the Bundesliga and Italian and German leagues are often more popular as they can be more freely available. There are said to be 30 million fans of English soccer in China.

Merchandising sales are hard to work out in China, because piracy is so rampant. While there are official outlets, most fans go for the pirate option. Outside the Bird’s Nest Stadium before the Italian Super Cup during the summer, hawkers were doing a roaring trade in Inter and AC Milan shirts.