Chinese whispers scarce after rules put brakes on CSL’s megastar transfers | Football

Chinese whispers scarce after rules put brakes on CSL’s megastar transfers | Football

‘Great Wad of China”, “Great Walk of China”, “Chinese Takeaway” “Forbidden City!” (for a story about Kasper Schmeichel not leaving Leicester), “China Crisis!” “There is no China Crisis!” A genre of UK headlines could soon become redundant after the latest intervention by the Beijing government in its flagship football competition, the Chinese Super League, came into force.

At the midpoint of the CSL season Luiz Felipe Scolari’s Guangzhou Evergrande, champions for the past six seasons, are four points clear at the top; Jiangsu Suning, coached by Fabio Capello, are in the relegation zone. But, in the middle of a month-long transfer window (the equivalent of the January market in the Premier League), excitable rumours linking European-based players with moves to east Asia have been notable by their absence.

This is due, in no small part, to the latest in a number of rule changes imposed by the Chinese government on its own brainchild. As of this month, the transfer of an overseas player will carry a levy. If the transfer fee paid by a CSL club is less than €6m (£5.3m), the same amount of money must be put into the club’s youth system. If the fee is greater than €6m, however, the same amount must be given to the state’s football development fund. In effect, foreign transfer fees have doubled.

If this seems a screeching handbrake turn from a league that only five months ago looked set upon overturning football’s established order, it is. But it is at least consistent. Only at the start of this year, rules regarding the number of overseas players allowed in any matchday squad were changed, reducing the total from four to three, while the required number of Chinese nationals increased commensurately. The latest announcement was accompanied by a proposed innovation; the German FA is considering allowing the China Underâ€'20s national side to join the fourth tier of the Bundesliga (only they would not play for points). The recent history of Chinese football has been one of sudden, dramatic changes.

“All policy in China is experimental and flexible,” says Dr Jonathan Sullivan, director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham. “The party sets out a general goal which state departments are charged with writing up into executable policy. Government bureaux, provincial governments, private commercial actors all interpret it in slightly different ways. Often policies as executed don’t have the party’s intended effects, or there is unexpected negative reaction or whatever â€" at which point it is adjusted in an ad hoc way.”

In other words China is acting like an imported Brazilian midfielder; improvising its way to success. This, according to Sullivan, is at least in part because the definition of what constitutes success in China can quickly change. One of the aims announced by Beijing in its much-trumpeted football reform plan last year, for example, had been to establish the national team as a world power by 2050 and one of the best in Asia within 15 years.

At the moment that looks a long way off, with a 2-2 draw against Syria last month leaving them bottom of the group and only able to qualify for next summer’s World Cup finals via a playoff.

“The government has multiple strategic goals relating to football, and the strength of the CSL is a relatively minor one,” Sullivan says. “The government wants China to be a major player in the global soccer industry; it wants to develop a national team that can compete on the international stage without embarrassing the country; it wants a strong domestic league ‘product’; and it wants to develop grassroots infrastructure to promote soccer as a healthy activity. Of course the government would like to see CSL clubs winning the Asian Champions League or doing well in the World Club Championship, but there are greater priorities.”

The fact the new transfer levy connects the import of foreign players to the development of young Chinese talent shows how these various priorities are interlinked. Following this ever-twisting thread is something especially important for the number of clubs owned by Chinese corporations (such as the Evergrande Real Estate Group, the company that owns the league leaders) for whom interpreting the will of the Chinese Communist party is central to its continuing success.

But what impact will the latest rule change have on the pitch? If a club so desired, they could still spend big money, but as yet none have. Anthony Modeste, the French striker who came third in the Bundesliga scoring charts last season, looked set to move to Tianjin Quanjian for £30m. The transfer collapsed last week when Modeste’s club, Köln, pulled the plug on the deal. Almost immediately rumours surfaced that Tianjin had turned their attentions to last season’s top scorer in the Bundesliga, Pierre Emerickâ€'Aubameyang, with a proposed £71m transfer fee and wages worth £500,000 a week. That said, there is yet to be a single foreign transfer of note to the CSL this window.

It may turn out that luring megastars on mega money is not the only way to improve the standard of, and engagement with, Chinese football. “I think a period of consolidation is a good thing for the CSL,” says Sullivan. “The authorities and clubs need to figure out what regulations work best for all concerned, including fans, the development of Chinese players and the quality of the on-field product. There is a concern that the CSL is a two-speed league with some exceptional foreign talent amid a morass of players who would struggle in the lower leagues in Europe.”

A factor that has exacerbated the problem is foreign talent having been anything but exceptional. Nicolas Anelka became the highest-paid player in Chinese history when he joined Shanghai Shenhua in 2012. He will, however, be remembered not for the paltry total of three goals he scored but for having been first given and then removed from the responsibilities of player-coach after the sacking of Jean Tigana.

The man who now holds Anelka’s mantle of all-time highest-paid, Carlos Tevez, looks unlikely to be remembered any more fondly; with one goal in seven appearances he has told Argentinian media he may return home after one season. Finally, a mention for Shanghai SIPG’s £51m signing Oscar. The former Chelsea midfielder earned the CSL worldwide attention last month, but not in the way his employer had hoped. The midfielder made one rash challenge, although he connected with ball not man, and then kicked the ball at another player. For those offences, which started a mass brawl, he was banned for eight matches. Last week Hulk and Wu Lei were then suspended for two matches after wearing T-shirts in support of their team-mate (they bore the sassy legend ‘nothing to do, nothing to say’). Oscar’s manager, André Villas-Boas, was also suspended for criticising the ban in an Instagram post. As yet foreign managers are not subject to a transfer levy.

“High-cost A-list foreign players have often flopped in China,” says Sullivan. “On the other hand, the most successful are relatively unknown Brazilians like Guangzhou Evergrande’s Elkeson and Ricardo Goulart, top scorers and MVPs in the past three years. Elkeson was bought for £4m from Botafogo and Ricardo Goulart was £10m from Cruzeiro. For a growing league like CSL, the value in performance lies in the kind of foreign players you can pick up for fees under the Chinese FA’s new threshold.”

Signing lower-profile names mayin turn bring other outcomes that benefit the grand Chinese plan. Fewer megastars who are far too good for the league (and who know it) may help make matches more competitive. This in turn would help with the development of Chinese players and perhaps help persuade more Chinese fans to take an interest in a league that currently languishes well below foreign football and the NBA in their affections.

This journey would be comparable to that experienced by Major League Soccer, a league that has largely weaned itself off highly paid superannuated foreigners and is now the third-biggest sport in the United States in terms of live attendance.

Whatever the future brings there will be one certain winner in the short term. Yes, you guessed it, the players. Those on the books of CSL clubs will soon be on the phone to their agents, if they are not already. “There is a possibility clubs will now be willing to pay a premium for Chinese national team players, not just for their relative footballing value but to capitalise on fan patriotism,” says Sullivan. “A further possibility is that foreign players will use the new regulations to improve their deals, knowing that replacements are now prohibitively expensive.” Consider it the yin and yang of Chinese football.

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