We need to talk about China

Decent standard, best in Asia, Evergrande leading the way and the rest playing catch up, there's been good players there for years, albeit this is the first time they've all blown the cash at the same time and to such an extent

Read an interesting article on the Guardian website about Chinese football yesterday. Apparently the president is a massive football fan, has launched big schools football schemes and the largest youth academy in the World is now also in China.

Part of me thinks this China things is swings and roundabouts. For years Spanish and English clubs were throwing obscure money tempting players from all parts of the world to their leagues, what makes China any different?

It's got Anzhi Machlava or whatever they're called written all over it

By one survey football is more popular in China as a percentage of population than any country on earth but there was apathy towards the league, not helped by a huge corruption problem that played out publicly. They got to the bottom of that and people trusted the league again but the players weren't there, that's now changing thankfully. But you can't just make people loyal fans over night either, indeed some companies are known to bus employees to their teams home games to ensure high attendance.

Teams like Beijing who were traditionally strong and with high support will be fine, they've spent wisely too, I'd worry about teams like Shanghai SIPG and others who have next to no fans and are spending wildly. Also Evergrande recent valuation of $380m is ridiculous.

It's certainly no coincide that this money is being thrown about at a time the Chinese stock exchange is being scrutinised for being heavily controlled by the Chinese government.
But of a smell of money laundering off these deals.
Also the reason Drogba left a few years back was because he wasn't getting paid. When there's enough money laundered the plug will be pulled.

Edited by Bitored - 05 Feb 2016 at 3:18pm

Bitored wrote: It's certainly no coincide that this money is being thrown about at a time the Chinese stock exchange is being scrutinised for being heavily controlled by the Chinese government. But of a smell of money laundering off these deals. Also the reason Drogba left a few years back was because he wasn't getting paid. When there's enough money laundered the plug will be pulled.

Drogba thing was different, owner was a fool, eccentric is a kind way of putting it, he since sold up up Greenland property group but is still in charge and still acting the eejit, recently banned the shenhua version of the kop for no reason

Lavezzi off out there now from PSG

My guess is most of the foreign players will get out of their contracts after months of not getting payed