Once it was China, not Saudi Arabia, on a multi-million pound recruitment drive to buy in the world's best football talent. In just a few years though, the Chinese Super League's big-money plans have imploded.
I hope this makes sense but it really goes to show how quickly clubs can run themselves into the ground. Chinese teams had little to no financial backing from sponsors, just owners or the CCP themselves and did little to develop themselves as big name players sought salaries even billionaires would shy from. I was excited for a new region to grow and potentially disrupt the upper echelons of the football pyramid but China went about it so poorly that it has backfired so bad, that football probably won’t ever recover there as investors have seen so many clubs fail. But hey, maybe their youth prospects over the next 15 years may be a little better
I hope this makes sense but it really goes to show how quickly clubs can run themselves into the ground. Chinese teams had little to no financial backing from sponsors, just owners or the CCP themselves and did little to develop themselves as big name players sought salaries even billionaires would shy from. I was excited for a new region to grow and potentially disrupt the upper echelons of the football pyramid but China went about it so poorly that it has backfired so bad, that football probably won’t ever recover there as investors have seen so many clubs fail. But hey, maybe their youth prospects over the next 15 years may be a little better