Buckle up, it’s that time of the year again. Yes, the Chinese Super League (CSL) is up and running as sixteen teams battle it out for the famed Fire-God trophy. As match-day two has drawn to a close, excitement levels are through the roof. Wouldn’t it be great to see my newly found surrogate team, the Wuhan Three Towns, mount a title drive. As fantastic as this would be, I doubt it would make the headlines. In fact, excitement levels remain profoundly non-existent.
So what’s happened to the Chinese Super League? It was once the mecca for big money
signings and ludicrous wage bills. In recent years, however, you simply don’t hear about it.
China has certainly found competition with the Saudi Pro League regarding player grabs, and that’s putting it nicely. The Saudis seem determined to infiltrate the world of elite football and stamp an indefinite mark on the game. The CSL, however, is back where it started in a state of purgatory and has failed to continue on its once steep trajectory.
The mid-2010s saw the emergence of the CSL as a retirement home for European and South American talent wanting to make a quick buck before their legs gave out, much like the Saudi League now. If we move past the reasons for players moving there, money, we can see that the CSL was attracting some impressive careers back in the day, particularly the Brazilian lads for some reason. Money.
Hulk, Ramires and Tevez, to name a few, all set the precedent for moving to the far east in search of greener pastures. Some took this a step further and naturalised as Chinese despite having no heritage whatsoever...Strange, I know. Rafa Benitez, the Real Madrid and Liverpool tactician, even fancied a bit of the action as he arrived at Dalian Professional in 2019.
These cash cows caught the attention of the wider football community as money was pumped into the league at a meteoric rate. Business tycoons and conglomerates were desperate to jump on the band wagon as football became the ‘hot new thing’ amidst President Xi Jinping’s nationwide drive to get China competing on the international stage.
The 2016 signing of two-time Premier League winner Oscar was the cherry on top. The Brazilian’s £60 million move from Chelsea to Shanghai SIPG, now Shanghai Port FC, whilst in his prime was the climax of China’s footballing dreams. It really seemed as if the CSL may go somewhere with many, including the likes of Antonio Conte, fearing for the future of Europe’s domestic leagues.
It is safe to say he got that one slightly wrong. Since then, it has been a complete disaster.
Clubs seem to be going into administration like it’s going out of fashion, broadcasting networks are getting restless at the sloven nature of the league, while its domestic fanbase have lost interest altogether. Average game attendances remain the highest in Asia, but with a population of 1.4bn, this is hardly surprising. Yet clubs like my Wuhan Three Towns still struggle to fill a third of their 60,000-seater stadium.
Speaking of Wuhan, Covid proved to be a right headache for the league and ultimately ransacked its progression. The extreme and prolonged nature of China’s Covid measures meant the financial strain was too much to take, especially for the multiple clubs that were propped up by real-estate funds. Since then, clubs have been dropping like flies.
Rafa’s Dalian Professional dissolved earlier this year owing to historical debts leaving them unable to admit into the 2024 season. Jiangsu FC shared a similar fate in 2021 as the club was forced to dissolve just months after winning the title. Some clubs even told players to take their kit home as they couldn’t afford the laundry bills. Imagine Ben White…no I can’t.
Coincidently, as Covid measures were slowly lifted in 2022, it was no other than Wuhan Three Towns FC who lifted the trophy that year. Now there's a conspiracy if I've ever seen one.
Additionally, constant game postponements and the clandestine nature of fixtures limited match-day revenue and saw sponsors cut and run, further exacerbating the issue. Bizarrely, and somewhat telling of the governance behind the CSL, in the face of this shit storm the decision was made to put the league on pause once again to make time for China’s 2022 World Cup qualification campaign. It’s safe to say that this risky ploy backfired. China came second to last in their group with no other than Saudi Arabia snatching it. Come on, it has to hurt…
Regardless of the damning upset Covid caused the CSL, I’m not sure genuine interest can be bred over night anyway. If the fans aren’t interested, what’s the point? It all screams of flogging and dead horses to me. It seems as if table tennis won't budge quite so easily.
Of course, however, this can change over time as infrastructure is developed to assimilate football within Chinese identity.
To his credit, President Xi Jinping, a supposed football nut, has tried to do just that. He wants China to compete with the big boys and has produced a domestic policy to match. Jinping has promised the construction of 50,000 football schools by 2025 in true Chinese fashion, with the hope of nicking a world cup by 2050. He has even put football on the national curriculum. Imagine that. I don’t think the UK could cope with that level of backing, we would simply implode!
Yet, for now anyway, these dreams remain fanciful. Chinese football is stagnated. China sits 88th on FIFA's global rankings, just in front of Haiti, a country in turmoil, and a few spots behind Luxembourg, a country no-one has heard of.
On top of this, we are yet to see a Chinese superstar. Where is the Chinese Pele? Most countries have a standout player who’s synonymous with national success. Japan have Mitoma, South Korea have Son Heung-min. Where's Chinas?
Comparing China to the likes of Japan and South Korea may seem cynical and lazy, which it probably is, but what it does show is that there is an interest and appetite for football in eastern Asia. It just hasn’t worked for China. Or maybe they just need more time.
It just goes to show that developing a league with a pedigree comparable to those in Europe is no mean feat and certainly requires more than a large cheque book. Money cannot buy heritage and a sturdy fan base who, for decades, have put football on a pedestal akin to that of religion. If one country was going to be able to do it, it would have been China with the remarkably efficient Xi Jinping at the helm. For now, though, we will have to wait and see.
The 2024 CSL campaign, then, remains important only for a select few with it fully embodying that of a flop. The fact is, nobody cares who wins the CSL and I don’t think they will for the foreseeable.
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