Why the World Cup Keeps Eluding China
This week, as the FIFA World Cup heats up in North America, we explore the state of Chinese soccer and why—despite repeated attempts at reform—it hasn’t found success on the global stage.
Chinese fans are once again lamenting the absence of their national team from the World Cup. The disappointment is particularly acute because this year’s tournament expanded from 32 to 48 teams, including a record nine from the Asian Football Confederation, in which the Chinese team competes.
China has reached the World Cup only once, in 2002, when it was eliminated from the group stage without scoring a goal. Though Chinese fans are used to seeing regional rivals Japan and South Korea easily qualify for the tournament, losing out to newcomers such as Jordan and Uzbekistan is harder to swallow.
What I find interesting is not simply the existence of these problems but China’s inability to solve them. Soccer is a personal priority of Chinese President Xi Jinping, a longtime fan of the sport. In 2011, before becoming president, Xi expressed three wishes for Chinese soccer: to qualify for the World Cup, host the World Cup, and win the World Cup.
Fifteen years later, China is no closer to those goals, despite billions of dollars in investment; repeated anti-corruption campaigns; and a massive, state-backed push to turn China into a “first-class soccer superpower” by 2050.
Part of the problem is that the Chinese domestic league is large and lucrative enough to keep talented players from seeking opportunities abroad, but it is so rife with incompetence and corruption that this talent often goes to waste.
Not a single player on the current Chinese national team plays for a foreign club; by contrast, only eight members of the U.S. squad play for Major League Soccer, the relatively weak U.S. league with several Canadian teams. Chinese players often go abroad during their youth careers but rarely stay overseas at the senior level.
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The state of football in China is just puzzling. I mean billions of dollars including taxpayer money has been spent on it. The president himself says China has three goals to achieve in football which is unusual for China since the Chinese tend to just do stuff and not declare it beforehand which just tells you how enthusiastic the state was about the sport.
And still the Chinese football team is just in this terrible state.
1.4 billion people, billions of dollars spent, the government itself stated it's interest in the sport and in the end this national team still couldn't find 11 half decent players to qualify for the world cup. Meanwhile You have midget states that no one ever heard of like Curaçao with a population of 150k people who did manage to qualify.
What's even the use of this national team? Just to waste money? If it wont bring results it should be disbanded. Chinese culture is usually super competitive thus bringing you good results. Yet this doesnt seem to be the case for football.
If China can't find 11 half decent players then they should do what Arab countries are doing. 8 arab teams qualified for the world cup. For Iraq 16 out of 26 players are born outside Iraq. For Morocco 19 out of 26 players are born outside Morocco, actually in their match against Brazil which was a 1-1 draw, all 11 active players were born, raised and played outside Morocco.
China should go to Europe, Africa, Latin America, Japan, South Korea, search for decent players of Chinese decent, doesnt even have to be 100% Chinese blood, they could be 50% or 25% Chinese decent, grant them citizenship and have them play for the Chinese national team.
