In 2017, Brazilian attacking midfielder Oscar completed a move to the Chinese Super League (CSL) for a record fee of 60 million pounds – one that is yet to be broken.
After spending eight years with Shanghai Port FC, Oscar – the only goalscorer for the Canaries in that 1-7 drubbing by Germany in the 2014 FIFA World Cup – returned to his boyhood club Sao Paulo after a gap of 14 years.
In these eight odd years of Oscar’s stay in China, the league has gone from being a highly sought, cash-rich one for the world’s best stars to one riddled with problems.
CSL’s day in the sun
One could argue that the initial high of the Chinese Super League began when then Vice-President Xi Jinping laid out a tripartite plan to make China a footballing powerhouse – to qualify for another FIFA World Cup, to host a World Cup, and to win the World Cup.
This was followed by a spending spree by corporate conglomerates who were reaping the rewards of a property boom in the country, and inundating the CSL with amounts of money that couldn’t be rivalled by the top leagues in the world.
From the 2015-16 season onwards, famous names like Oscar, Hulk, Ramires and others joined the league from clubs like Chelsea and Barcelona. Players like Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka had previously played for Shanghai Shenhua briefly between 2012 and 2013.
“Every football player, or every person who works, wants to earn money to help their families,” Oscar, who remains the most expensive buy in CSL’s history, told The Guardian shortly after his move to China.
Transfer tax, salary cap, attempt to help local players
According to CNN, USD 451 million was splurged on transfers during the 2015-16 season, making the Chinese Super League one of the top five spending leagues in the world at that point.
However, it just took about two years for the harsh reality of spending a lot on foreign stars to hit the Chinese Football Association (CFA).
To tackle the exorbitant amount of money spent by clubs, the FA announced the imposition of a 100 per cent transfer tax. This was aimed at using the taxed money to focus on honing local talent which would help the men’s national team.
In 2018, the FA imposed an annual salary cap of 10 million yuan (USD 1.45 million) for domestic players and other measures to crack down on teams resorting to “ying-ying contracts”. This cap didn’t affect the foreign players.
These contracts are essentially dual contracts – one for tax purposes and another with the real figures.
“The association will draw on the experience of advanced overseas leagues to design comprehensive measures to control high wages, high bonuses, high transfer fees and other issues,” Li Yuyi, the then CFA vice chairman, had said, according to Xinhua news agency.
“If there’s only investment but no clear idea of what the long-term returns are, Chinese football is not sustainable. Companies (that own teams) need to understand why [they should] invest, what are the rewards and what it contributes to society,” Li had added.
Three years later, another salary cap was introduced by the CFA, which did affect the foreigners. This capped the annual salaries of the foreign players at three million euros and at five million yuan for domestic players.
“Chinese Super League (CSL) club expenditure is about 10 times higher than South Korea’s K-League and three times higher than Japan’s J-league. But our national team is lagging far behind,” then CFA president Chen Xuyuan had said.
Did the spending spree help Chinese football?
Out of the 25 most expensive arrivals in the league’s history, only Yuhao Zhao – a Chinese-born midfielder – still continues to play in the CSL.
As for the foreigners among these 25 players, Brazil’s Elkeson stayed the longest (nine years), followed by Oscar (eight years).
Only a handful of players are still playing the sport to this day, and even fewer at the top-most level. Axel Witsel, who played in China for just a year, now plays for Atletico Madrid in the La Liga. Stephen El Shaarawy, who spent two years in the CSL, now plays for Roma in Italy.
One name which stands out in terms of helping the Chinese clubs achieve something continentally is Ricardo Goulart. The Brazilian forward helped Guangzhou Evergrande clinch its second AFC Champions League in 2015, an edition in which he finished as the top-scorer with eight goals.
Some of the league’s players were also naturalised and given Chinese citizenship to help the fortunes of the men’s national team. One of these players was Elkeson (now known as Ai Kesen) who played for China 19 times and netted four goals.
In fact, even Oscar at one point expressed interest in changing nationality and playing for China, if FIFA rules allowed him.
Despite these efforts of injecting the national team with foreign talent, the side failed to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The Dragon Team bowed out in the third round of the AFC qualifiers after finishing second last in their group.
Even in the 2023 AFC Asian Cup, China failed to make it out of the group stage.
Debt, corruption, Covid
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected the Chinese Super League. The once financially powerful corporate bigwigs of the country, which owned a number of clubs, were now struggling to make ends meet.
This resulted in the 2020 champion Jiangsu FC being dissolved after its owner Suning – the former owner of Inter Milan – decided to pull the plug on the club’s operations.
Another club in Hebei FC found itself in troubled waters. “Since 2020, Hebei FC has run into unprecedented difficulties,” the club had said in 2021. “It is true that the club cannot pay water and electricity bills and travel expenses.”
Then came Guangzhou FC – eight-time champion of the CSL – whose owner Evergrande found itself swimming in USD 300 billion of debt.
In the span of a few days in January 2024, Dalian Pro and inaugural CSL champion Shenzhen FC closed down due to debts.
And if the financial crunch wasn’t enough, the league was rocked by gambling and match-fixing cases in September of last year. Forty three people were slapped with lifetime football bans.
There have been crackdowns on corrupt CFA officials in recent times. Former chief Chen was imprisoned for life after being found guilty of taking huge bribes.
However, despite all these issues, there has been an upward trend in fans flocking to the stadiums after a three-year lull due to the pandemic.
What’s happening now?
The newly elected CFA President Song Kai said in December that Chinese football can have a good future but also said that “everyone is dissatisfied” with the current status of the sport in the country, according to chinanews.com.
He went on to propose six measures that could bring Chinese football onto the right path. These measures are namely:
- Football should be based on technology
- Focus on hard training and recovery from the same
- Development of youth football and good coaches to ensure that
- Building a competitive system
- Promote the integration of sports and education
- Mobilise local enthusiasm
While what Song says does sound like a plan, the “danger” that the Chinese market posed to all the teams in the world at one point, according to former Chelsea manager Antonio Conte, seems to have subsided long back.
Content Source: sportstar.thehindu.com