The Chinese professional football scene – and the men’s national team in particular – has been mired in scandal and stories of poor performance. The most recent example emerged as hundreds of Chinese athletes prepared to compete for gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics, and the men's football team was eliminated in the qualifying rounds. So, what has gone wrong with professional football in China and why has the nation struggled to make a mark in the beautiful game?
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00:00For many years, China's men's national football team has been a source of deep disappointment
00:09for fans, materials for satire, and more recently, the subject of crime stories on national television.
00:28As the Paris Olympics kick off, hundreds of Chinese athletes are once again competing
00:34for gold, but not the men's football team.
00:37They were eliminated in the qualifying rounds.
00:40So, for a country of 1.4 billion that has produced so many Olympic medalists, why can't
00:47China find 11 players who can excel at the beautiful game?
00:56To get a sense of how dire people think the situation is, here is the most circulated
01:02rant about Chinese football.
01:21Fan was part of China's 2002 World Cup squad.
01:25The only Chinese men's side to ever reach the World Cup finals.
01:30Back then, China's football team was ranked 63rd in the world, but in 2024, it has dropped
01:37to 88th, behind countries like Haiti and Curaçao, not to mention its neighbors Japan and South
01:45Korea.
01:47Since 2019, the Chinese men's national team has had five head coaches.
01:53Fan's interview was even broadcast on a state-owned television channel in Shanghai.
01:59Such sharp criticism of a national team on official media is rare in China.
02:05In 2022, the men's national team would go on to fulfill Fan's pessimistic prophecy when
02:11it lost to Vietnam for the first time in its history.
02:18Contrary to popular belief, football just isn't that popular in China.
02:22Compared with other countries, not many Chinese people actually play the game.
02:48In 2016, the Chinese government published a blueprint for the nation's football development.
02:59Authorities vowed to build 20,000 football schools, build over 70,000 football pitches,
03:05train over 50 million players, of which 30 million would be elementary and high school
03:11students.
03:12The main aim was for China to become a football superpower by 2050.
03:18On paper, a lot of these goals were accomplished.
03:22The country had over 120,000 football pitches as of 2021, 30,000 schools with football as
03:30part of the curriculum and regular matches of the 55 million students playing football.
03:40But while those targets have been met, the country's national football program has not
03:45seen significant improvements.
03:47Experts said the problem lies in how the policies and reforms have been implemented.
03:53Like many other economic and industrial plans in China, sports programs follow a top-down
03:59approach.
04:00That means the government hands down and outlines with goals for related bodies to accomplish.
04:06This approach succeeded in delivering a world-class infrastructure network and building world-dominating
04:12electric vehicles, but not a world-class football team.
04:16People basically take signals from above.
04:20Football is the exact opposite in terms of how it normally develops.
04:23It would be like a kind of KPI approach.
04:25Have you developed five good players in the past year tick?
04:28Have you invested X amount in the system in your local area tick?
04:33Have you incorporated football in your curriculum?
04:35How many hours have you put in it?
04:38It needs to be arranged in such a way that people have the space.
04:46This kind of approach will sometimes result in school participation in football that looks
04:51like this.
04:56China's grueling exam-oriented education system also discourages participation.
05:02Today media reported many students dropped out of youth football programs because of
05:07academic pressure.
05:14I think the culture definitely plays a big part of that.
05:18To many in China, the education is always prioritized.
05:22There's not a very clear path to succeed in football as a young player.
05:27So many families, they probably don't want their kids to take the risk.
05:32In short, the huge investments never materialize into a steady stream of young players.
05:44But Chinese football did have its moment after Beijing vowed staunch support for the sport.
05:50In the years that followed, an astronomical amount of money flooded China's football clubs.
05:56In January 2017, Chinese clubs lavished over US$438 million on players,
06:04dwarfing the US$268 million spent by teams in the English Premier League.
06:12Clubs built giant football stadiums that could accommodate as many as 100,000 fans,
06:18recruited international football stars like Brazilian footballer Oscar from Chelsea,
06:23and set up top football schools.
06:25These clubs would go on to win not only titles in China, but also top tournaments such as the AFC Cup.
06:32For a moment, it seemed China could buy its way into world domination.
06:37We are the champions!
06:39Guangzhou is the champion!
06:40Yeah!
06:43But then in 2021, a crisis developed in China's property sector.
06:50At the time, 10 out of 16 clubs in the Chinese Super League were at least partly owned by real estate companies.
06:59There was absolutely no way they could possibly make this money back.
07:01You're talking most clubs are selling a season ticket for less than a thousand renminbi.
07:06You just compare that with the players' salaries, investment.
07:09The Rose High Profile case was Evergrande, owner of Guangzhou FC.
07:14After it shocked the world with its huge debt and thousands of unfinished apartment blocks,
07:20most of the football stars left and construction of the team's new stadium halted.
07:26And the Chinese Super League 2021 champion Jiangsu FC just simply folded,
07:32because its owner was in a financial mess after investing billions into one of Evergrande's subsidiaries
07:39and declining business within itself.
07:41The main problem is that the investment was not for football's sake.
07:44They would put money into the football clubs.
07:47It wasn't because they had a real genuine love for football or even the desire to really see Chinese football improve.
07:52They just thought this was a way to help them get ahead with their business or political aspirations.
07:57But the bubble created by disgraced property moguls is not the sole cause of China's football woes.
08:03Experts suggest the laser focus on the national team is actually counterproductive.
08:12The Chinese Super League is occasionally interrupted by the national team's training camps,
08:18which can sometimes last more than a month.
08:20And in some instances, clubs' performers suffer because their top players were summoned to the national team.
08:29The national team really needs a system underneath it which generates talents for the national team.
08:35When you play with a national team, you're training for two weeks,
08:37but training is not as good as playing an actual real game.
08:40If you make a local football club successful,
08:43then this is a way to advertise a potential career in football for all the kids who live in this part of China.
08:55Perhaps the hope for Chinese football lies in this small town in the nation's southwestern province of Guizhou.
09:03The Village Football League has grown from friendly matches between villages
09:08to a national event that has movie stars and even retired international players,
09:14such as Kaka taking turns on the pitch.
09:30I think there are many other ways we can promote the grassroots participation.
09:35This does not only need to happen in the school or in the football academies.
09:40And it's important to see how the people can leverage the football to benefit other sectors such as tourism,
09:47and also like the education, so we can get more stakeholders involved to grow the sport collectively.
09:56Whether China's men's football team can become a serious contender on the world stage remains to be seen.
10:02But here, the sport seems to have returned to its purest form – joy, passion and excitement.
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