True, but suggestions are that Real want rid sooner rather than later. While these could still be contract wrangling's from both sides as per usual, if Real were looking to offload, China might offer a decent option allowing them to get some money for him while not selling to a Champions league rival.
Chinese League
- Thread starter SilentWitness
- Start date
They can sell him to us then aswell
How long will it be before this league overtakes the French league for quality, which is poor apart from PSG?
The Chinese league is a radically different threat than the MLS. This is the third generation of the US trying to get football up and running and it's still bitty and barely worth watching. Everyone knows that soccer is only the fifth sport there (arguably). The wages being splashed in China are way more than 2 to 3 times the MLS and if they clean up their air and truly saturate the league with big names there will be no shame involved in making a mid career leap to stadiums holding 100,000. It's only the elite 9 European teams they will fail to surpass for the foreseeable future.
Probably never unless they get rid of the restrictions on their match day squad.
Out of interest as i dont know an awful lot about the Chinese league etc, but is Football actually their largest sport? is football something Chinese kids play in the streets and such like we do here? and do they have any sort of youth set-up or are they ploughing money into that too?
When it comes to countries producing footballers, it generally comes down to numbers and interest.
Places with high % of kids playing a certain sport, and the big overall numbers involved tend to be those powerhouse nations that are known for producing players, so as an example Brazil have an abundance of players in almost every league because the interest in football there is immense, and the population is too, being 200million which is 3-4 times that of European nations generally.
If China's kids are getting more into football, simply the population involved in China should mean a pretty substantial number of talented players will emerge over time.
When it comes to countries producing footballers, it generally comes down to numbers and interest.
Places with high % of kids playing a certain sport, and the big overall numbers involved tend to be those powerhouse nations that are known for producing players, so as an example Brazil have an abundance of players in almost every league because the interest in football there is immense, and the population is too, being 200million which is 3-4 times that of European nations generally.
If China's kids are getting more into football, simply the population involved in China should mean a pretty substantial number of talented players will emerge over time.
They're absolutely pounding money into the youth setup, making it part of their schools curriculum, bringing over all kinds of European and South American coaches too. Don't know about kids on the street, but as a nation they're going all in at every level.
Won't happen, the Chinese teams are still getting trashed by the Eastern European ones and I'm not even talking about the better sides from Russia, Ukraine etc.
Makes sense, and if they continue then its only a matter of time before we start seeing world class Chinese players.
Massive shift in power coming towards china in all facets of life, why not football too.
A lot of Chinese cities don't really have spaces for kids just to play football in the streets, most of the football pitches are in the universities and you do get a lot of people playing there at the weekends but it's mostly adults. There is interest in football and it's relatively popular but not as popular as basketball. Once Chinese kids reach middle school there isn't a lot of time for them to play sports. They are in school nearly all day and along with the amount of homework they get they don't really have the time. The other problem is that there is a big risk of failure if you decide to go down the route of concentrating on a sport rather than academic work. Most Chinese parents wouldn't allow their children to do that as there isn't the same options in China if you don't do well at school.
They are putting a lot of money into developing football at youth level. The state media were going on about it a few months back but it's gone a bit quiet recently. I know a few people that set up a football school on Saturday mornings, and I know of a few other people that have been working in schools that were asked if they'd do some coaching so it seems to be catching on a bit. I am not sure if the parents are sending them to these schools because they are genuinely interested in football or because they see at as another way to learn English.
Living in China you learn not to predict anything. If the political will is there then there is a good chance that they will succeed in improving but they are starting from a very low level, Chinese players are not very good. Xi JinPing is supposedly football mad so there probably is a good chance of success but it could also just end up as another campaign that never amounts to anything. Given the amount of money the teams have been spending on players there has been some input from the state but I have my doubts about what effect it will have at youth level in the long term.
They may lift that limit or at least loosen it a bit.
Never. French league is not that terrible.
http://english.caixin.com/2016-02-19/100910724.html
LeTV reportedly buying the Super League television rights for about £300,000,000. Caixin are reliable so it's likely to be true.
LeTV reportedly buying the Super League television rights for about £300,000,000. Caixin are reliable so it's likely to be true.
http://www.espnfc.co.uk/chinese-sup...gn-players-share-chinese-super-league-bonuses
What the ESPNFC article doesn't mention but L'Equipe (behind the paywall) does is that Gervinho gets apparently €160,000 per goal as a bonus.
£300 million? That can't possibly be right. Crazy money if true!
How are the big name players doing?
Why not?
China's a huge country, they get fairly big attendances to games already, and the State has pledged $850bn worth of investment into the sport over the next decade. I think its a fairly good bet, if you're looking to make money in China, to follow where the government is investing its own cash.
Without even looking I can say they've probably not even making that much of a difference. When you play with shit players it doesn't matter how good you are yourself, it will just be a mess. What's the point in making a smart pass/run when no one else knows what you're doing?
Caixin are probably the only media in China that I would take seriously so them reporting it means it's likely true. There was another article on there a few weeks back that I can't find but they have said that having paid that much for it they will start moving towards subscriptions. All the games are free at the moment.
Its popular behind basketball and table tennis but sport as a whole is not a big thing in China. Kids spend every waking hour studying and then its straight into 6 day working weeks for most. Between work and family there isnt much time left, and with the one child policy kids are forced in directions other than sport.
That's about to change when it comes to football.
China is determined to host a WC and win it. The Chinese government has invested and is ging to invest billions into the development of football, i.e. into their youth. In a number of schools, children are screened at a young age and if found to be talented, have to attend football training after school 5 days a week. There are academy facilities with 50 and more fields one after another, youth coaches from Real Madrid and other European clubs are working for those academies.
I have no doubt that the new Chinese sponsor of FIFA, Wanda, is getting China's government a step closer to their goals.
There is no 'one child policy' any more. Gone. It's now a two child policy. And whilst what you say with regard to study is true any children that show promise in the compulsory sports they attend at school will be fast-tracked.
Its gone but it will be a generation before it makes a difference.
Looking at the Asian Champions League and there are countries in there like Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Australia, China, Qatar, Singapore who have the money to create a very competitive tournament in future.
Presuming Football Manager is correct, then the East and West Asian sides are kept apart for reasons of geography until the final, which somewhat limits its appeal.
Oh i didn't realize they were kept apart like that.
No reason they can't change it though, according to wikipedia it was introduced to keep down travel costs when teams weren't very rich. So in the theoretical scenario when the ACL is worth watching, that definitely wont be an issue. (I'm also not at all sure the distance from, say, Guangzhou to an Australian club is hugely cheaper/shorter than the distance from Guangzhou to Qatar).
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That makes sense. Can see them changing that in the future.
Could be dead for all we know, they've signed away their careers for cash.
Well to be strictly accurate .. that isn't accurate either. The one child policy was only ever enforceable in cities, in the countryside they pretty much had as many as they wanted / could afford and since the 'countryside' used to account for 70% of the Chinese population then that was a damn high figure (as a by-product of that the Govt. population census is always very conservative since families do not declare unregistered children. That 1.4B is more like 1.6 - 1.8B). Since the Govt. push to urbanise the population as a means to increase productivity and improve everything from health care to tax collection that urbanisation figure is more like 60% (a guesstimate because I can't be arsed going to find the exact current data).
Im not sure what any of that has to do with China and football? Sport like football just isnt that big of a deal here and thats not going to change overnight. Sport in general is not a huge priority. The government can force kids into academies but until every kid in the street is kicking a ball around in their free time it wont make much difference. Cultural shifts like that take generations.
This has turned into a discussion about Chinese governmental policies 
Back to football, the big names are doing alright. Jackson Martinez is gradually finding his feet. Texeira and Ramires have been carrying Jiangsu Sunning. Gervinho played 1 scored 1, Lavecci still building up his fitness.
Back to football, the big names are doing alright. Jackson Martinez is gradually finding his feet. Texeira and Ramires have been carrying Jiangsu Sunning. Gervinho played 1 scored 1, Lavecci still building up his fitness.
yeah Jackson started quite slow but you could see he is just a level above the competition. If he can form a partnership with Goulart, Guanzhou will be basically unstoppableThis has turned into a discussion about Chinese governmental policies
Back to football, the big names are doing alright. Jackson Martinez is gradually finding his feet. Texeira and Ramires have been carrying Jiangsu Sunning. Gervinho played 1 scored 1, Lavecci still building up his fitness.
Then why did you bring it up ! You stated the one child policy was part of the issue - I corrected your uninformed / misleading assertion. The children are never going to be kicking the ball around on every street corner (as if that is even possible here) - that tradition has already disappeared from the UK and probably most other '1st World' countries.
And with a population the size of China's that's irrelevant anyway if we put it into perspective .... England (40,000 clubs ... 2m registered players ca. 3.33% of the population), Germany 32,000+ clubs (6.5m registered players, ca. 8.1% of the population), Argentina 3,337 clubs .... 332,000 registered players, ca. 0.007% of the population. China's population ca. 1.6 - 1.8B, so to get to the same number of participation as England they only need roughly 0.000125% of the population to play. If we use FIFA's figures (FIFA Big Count 2006 pdf) China has more people playing football (26m) than any other country in the world (and that was in 2006 !), so obviously there is very a strong grass roots, but a lack of structure and a lack of quality coaching/training to promote and improve those talented players. For interest 10th is Russia with 6m and England doesn't make the Top 10.
Wiki : Football has always been among the more popular amateur team sports for recreation in China. High schools often have football facilities, some of which are rented on weekends to local amateur teams to organise matches. It is also the most popular sport to watch on television, with large international tournaments such as the World Cup and the European Championships, as well as major European leagues receiving widespread coverage.
There's only three things that matter in China with regard to sport ; nationalism, money and fame (though I should tip my hat at a growing 4th - fitness awareness). The Govt. handles the promotion and training of those fitting the first criteria, the second and third are easily promoted to the masses by information dissemination. Here's an example, when I first came to China (20 years ago) golf was virtually unheard of, there were only a handful of courses in the whole country (I ran corporate leagues for 10 years as a way of promoting my business) ... however bringing the Asian Tour and then the European Tour and then massive events like the HSBC (with the world's top players) ignited the game here. Everyone had soon heard of Tiger Woods (or simply 'Tiger' to most) and then every practice range and course (there were soon many many more) was full to bursting .... with children driven on by their fanatical parents. Their top players are now knocking on the door and ahave numerous Top 10 finishes in LPGA & European Ladies' events and the men are not far behind. The numbers of participation in golf are miniscule as a % of the population (it is an extremely expensive sport here, as in Japan and Korea).
So it's not difficult to see something similar happening with football, they now have Govt. support (vital), the money, the numbers, and now they are bringing in good foreign players and top coaches and managers. Though in truth it may well take a generation, or maybe a little less, to see them evolve into a nation challenging for trophies. Growth can be exponential, look at computing, science, medicine, space travel whatever you like, if you throw enough money at it, but at the worst you are going to make rapid progress.
With the Govt. behind China's football it's naive to think that they won't soon start to make serious improvement, which will in turn generate greater interest and greater involvement. All that said I'm also not so naive to think that progress will be linear, there may be many twists & turns on this road, look at the potential for golf's demise now that the Govt. have disenfranchised it. This is still China after all !
I don't know if it's already known but Just seen that sky sports have got the Chinese super league games...why exactly? I mean who is actually going to watch them because everyone wants to watch the likes of Ramires, Paulinho, pelle dont they.
So sky/Virgin media keeps going up in price pretty much every month probably so sky could help bid for crap like this
So sky/Virgin media keeps going up in price pretty much every month probably so sky could help bid for crap like this
Bt have everything else
I know it's not exactly a top league but I've watched some Asian CL games recently and they're quite fun to watch. All the talent they buy are offensive players so it's mostly good offense against poor defences which makes for a fun watch.
Bamboo Goalposts by Rowan Simons is a decent book if you want to know more about football in China.
The Chinese Super League isn't as bad as some people think, it isn't up there with European Leagues but you do get some good games. There is an enormous gap between the Super League and the first division though.
The Chinese Super League isn't as bad as some people think, it isn't up there with European Leagues but you do get some good games. There is an enormous gap between the Super League and the first division though.