I’m not an expert on Chinese football, but I have heard an analysis on a Danish football podcast, where they interviewed a Danish assistant in Shanghai SIPG (Mads Davidsen) who have been there for about 4 years. The analysis below is his and not mine, but it gives a little overview and insight in the system, where all the money comes from and how the future Chinese football looks like.
First of all he said that the situation in China cannot be compared with the trend in European football, where some (extravagant) rich business men literally takes over the clubs and buy big players. The business men can lose interest when they realize that it is hard to generate revenue in football and quite easy to go into ‘endless’ debt and consequently pull out sooner or later. That is not the case in China.
He said that Chinese clubs’ economies has been growing over at least the last 4 years, and that it is more like a slow progress than coming out of nowhere this particular window.
The reason why more Chinese clubs are getting richer has to do with their quite state-centered society which spills over in football:
The president in China has openly expressed that he is very fond of football, and that matters a great deal in the Chinese system. Good relations to the government is alpha and omega in China when you run a business. That is part of the reason why many large companies invest so much in football right now.
The clubs are owned by very large private companies ex. Shanghai SIPG, where SIPG is a large shipping firm. Most of the firms has very large expenditures on their football clubs – and growing in form of higher transfer fees and wages. But the trick is – it doesn’t really matter in China because football is good for business in other areas: SIPG get economical support from the government BECAUSE they invest in football, and also benefit from other good conditions provided by the government. So in the long run the firms actually gain money by investing in football although they spend as much as they do right now.
The change with this transfer window is maybe that the players considering a move (primarily south americans) knows that other (relatively) good players already plays there, and that the level of the league is rising. Last year they broke records for spectators, tv-audiences and also landed a TV-deal 30 times bigger than the last one.
He revealed that Shanghai SIPG had been offered close-to-start-11 players from Manchester City and Bayern Munich in the winter transfer window – the big clubs know they have big money now.
The president said a few years ago that China should hold the world cup (maybe 2026 or 2030) and later on win it!
Because of that they are investing heavily in talent development. The plan is to build 20 000 football academies all around in China before 2017, and also make 20 000 new football pitches. On top of that football is obligatory after school 3 times a week! That means 2.5 million children playing football because the government says so. The Chinese clubs have their own academies - Guangzhou Evergrande F.C. just made the worlds biggest with 3000 children living there, playing 7 days a week. In that case 15 trainers from Real Madrid were hired to structure the training sessions all should go through.
All this gives you an idea about the situation: the last window was a product of a long development, which will continue in the future. But world-class players are not willing to move there – if some eventually will do, it will be because of the money, which only will be growing in the coming years.
