This is why MLS has been controlling spending and growing steadily
“growing steadily” we’re just a real estate laundering league. The majority of the value of our teams is in their stadiums.
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’ve looked at the history of Chinese football and the regularity in which clubs just go poof is perplexing to me from a country where there would be a huge outcry if that occurred to any club.
Hope this happens to all these Arab pumping money leagues and fraud oil clubs. Never seen a more unclass bunch of fans and promoters
Saudi Arabia has unlimited oil money, China doesn’t.
What was the strategy of Chinese football?
Buy clubs in Europe -> send Chinese youth players to these clubs -> inject money into domestic clubs with star players -> expose domestic players to a higher level of play
Was this the strategy?
Isn’t Japan successfully doing this? At least for the first two steps. Of course they have much better players than China.