How China’s football boom went from world’s best-paid players to abandoned stadiums

Jul 10, 2023 7:37 AM

  Harsh Covid restrictions, a struggling economy and hasty planning turned the home of Carlos Tevez, Hulk, and Oscar into a cemetery of abandoned stadiums and collapsed clubs.  

And the boom and bust could be a cautionary tale for Saudi Arabia - whose own football ambitions can draw some direct lines to China.

Uefa chiefs have urged the kingdom not to make "similar mistakes" which blighted the rise of the sport in the Communist nation.

Football fans around the world are being left gobsmacked as Saudi scoops players such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema on huge contracts worth hundreds of millions.

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This is something very well analysed and  the  and  the  overall details provided are more than enough to have  a deep case study for any country trying to follow the footsteps of  China in football.

For football to flourish in a country there are several factors  that are to be in placed  and that starts with the popularity of football in general public. One may consider that signing big names does makes an impact and that adds to the popularity of a certain league and may impact  in a positive way in the overall football popularity in that country.

Now the test case of China is a strange one and one that will have an impact and others can learn lessons from it.  China has paid a lot of money on bringing in players like Hulk, Oscar and Tevez who were all on big pays. The biggest one was for Tevez who was being paid  a pound per second such was the nature of his contract.

China has put a lot of money in football without proper planning and that has resulted in huge financial losses so now we have come to a stage where China has been terminating the contracts of players while many players are complain about the non payments of  the salary that is because of bad planning as the overall popularity of football was close to nothing in the country and that's why it has resulted in such a turmoil. 

Now Saudi Arabia are trying to follow the footprints of China and it might end up same like that so if you want to be successful in football than  you need follow the models of PSG and Manchester City as both clubs are doing much better financially and that's why they are a great role model indeed.

Pic Source The SunPic Source The Sun
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