Then-Chinese deputy leader Xi Jinping (C) kicks a Gaelic football as he visits at Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland on Feb. 19, 2012. Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images
The Chinese national soccer team (recognized as China PR by FIFA) slipped to 81st in the world with the rankings update by FIFA in April 2023, although the sport received big money and strong support from the communist regime.
Their best-ever ranking was 37th in 1998, while their worst came in 2013, dropping to 109th.
Like table tennis, soccer is also an important part of China’s sports diplomacy, which is used by current Chinese leader Xi Jinping as a soft power to promote his agenda. He expressed his fondness for the sport in various diplomatic scenarios.
In July 2011, as China’s vice chairman, Xi met Sohn Hak-kyu, then South Korea’s Democratic Party leader, reportedly claiming that he had three wishes for China’s national team, “To qualify for a World Cup, to host a World Cup, and to win a World Cup.”
On Feb. 19, 2012, Xi kicked a Gaelic football while visiting Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland, as part of his “soccer diplomacy” to advocate his Belt and Road Initiative.
Inside China, the communist regime issued a notice on the reform and development of the sport in March 2015 and then set up a leading team led by Liu Yandong, a vice premier, the following month. It began to pour big money into the sport and even pay big money to recruit top international players in an effort to escalate its world ranking.
Big Money Spent on Chinese and International Players
Chinese soccer players have enjoyed higher pay since last century.
Yang Weidong, a Chinese artist now living in Germany, told the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times in a recent interview: “In the late 1970s, an ordinary player on the national soccer team had air conditioning, while nobody else could afford it in the country. The soccer industry received sponsorship earlier than other Chinese sports teams.”
Michael McGlinchey (L) of Central Coast Mariners challenges Zhao Xuri of Guangzhou Evergrande during the AFC Champions League knockout round match between Guangzhou Evergrande and Central Coast Mariners at Tianhe Stadium in Guangzhou, China, in May. Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
Yang is the son of Xue Yinxian, the former chief doctor at China’s General Administration of Sport and whistleblower of the country’s state-sanctioned doping.
According to Chen Xuyuan, the chairman of the Chinese Football Association, Chinese soccer clubs invested three times as much as the Japanese professional league and ten times as much as the Korean professional league.
In 2020, China’s Football Association issued a salary cap for top-tier players, according to a report by CCP’s mouthpiece CCTV: the annual salaries of Chinese nationals playing in the Chinese Super League were to be capped at five million yuan ($764,000) before tax, while foreigner players could be paid a maximum of three million euros ($3.65 million).
Introducing top foreign players is another money-burning method to boost China’s soccer team’s performance. Transfer fees, however, for top foreign players are high. The transfer investment in the Chinese Super League market went from 34.53 million euros in 2012 to a whopping 430 million euros in 2017, making it at one point the most money-burning soccer league market in the world, as reported by China’s popular news portal Sina in April 2022.
Oscar dos Santos Emboaba Júnior, one of the world’s top footballers, formerly playing for Chelsea, was transferred to SIPG (Shanghai International Port Group, now known as Shanghai Port F.C.) for £60 million ($74.5 million) in Jan. 2017. The Brazilian midfielder’s contract with SIPG will expire in Nov. 2024.
Other famous players introduced to the Chinese Super League included Givanildo Vieira de Souza, known popularly as Hulk, who signed on by SIPG in 2016 for a transfer fee of €55.8 million ($61.4 million); Alex Teixeira, by Jiangsu Suning FC for €50 million ($54.8 million); and Renato Augusto by Beijing Guoan for €8 million ($8.7 million), just name a few.
China’s soccer team’s ranking hasn’t improved with the introduction of these top international players.
Ruled by CCP, Sports in China Lacks True Sportsmanship: Former Chinese Athlete
Sports in China are strictly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), serving as a tool for the CCP’s diplomacy and politics, while professional Chinese athletes are all victims of such a system, Ju Bin told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times recently.
Politburo Standing Committee member and former Tianjin chief Zhang Gaoli at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 8, 2015. Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images
“Sport in China is affiliated with politics and it isn’t independent. Athletes cannot get rid of the government or the CCP, which is a very terrible thing,” Ju said, “the only purpose of competitive sport in China is for gold medals.”
Ju was formerly a player on the Chinese men’s national basketball team and is now living in Canada.
Disobedience with the party or failure to please the party may bring an end to the professional career of a Chinese athlete.
An eighteen-year-old Chinese short-track speedskater Zhou Yang failed to thank the country after she won a gold medal at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. She thanked her coach, her teammates, and her parents, without expressing her gratitude to the CCP. After being criticized by a top sports official, she quickly learned her lesson and gave thanks to the country in an upcoming interview.
In China, the CCP brainwashes Chinese people by mixing the concepts of the country, the state, and the ruling party and saying that only the CCP can represent the Chinese people and the country.
The CCP’s control of athletes includes those naturalized players who must give up their foreign citizenship. The CCP’s football association (CFA) issued “Provisional Regulations on the Management of Naturalized Players” in 2019, which stipulates that the Chinese football clubs must “cultivate a sense of patriotism” among those naturalized players and that the clubs’ CCP organizations must “educate naturalized players on the history and basic theories” of the CCP. The CFA also requires that each club should designate a person responsible for “tracking the ideological, living, training, and competitive status” of the naturalized players and “submitting a written report [on these players] every month” to the CFA.
During the preparation for the 2022 Qatar World Cup Asian qualifiers, the Chinese national football team established a temporary CCP branch, requiring 20 party members in the team to “play a leading role as exemplary models,” reported RFA.
Ju Bin believes that, with “a slave mindset” under the CCP’s ideological control, there’s a lack of true sportsmanship in the country. He encourages athletes in China to leave the country and develop their professional careers in free countries with their talents and love for true sports.
International Players Are Reportedly Leaving China Despite High Pay
Top foreign players are leaving Chinese teams despite the higher salaries they get in China, according to CNN.
Hulk, Paulinho, and Alex Teixeira left via free transfers or mutual termination.
John Mary Honi Uzuegbunam, a Cameroonian player who played for the Shenzhen Football Club and second-tier Meizhou Hakka from 2018 to 2022, left China for family reasons. He missed the birth of his first child, his twins, and their first two birthdays due to China’s stringent zero-COVID policies. He is now playing for Caykur Rizespor in Turkey.
Song Tang and Luo Ya contributed to this report.
Sophia Lam
Author
Sophia Lam joined The Epoch Times in 2021 and covers China-related topics.
