Game over at São Januário, they're champions. Foreigners have their eyes on our pearls. Nice to meet you, I’m China, I have plenty of money and I’m taking your best players.
In 2015, months after becoming the Brazilian champion, Corinthians lost four players to an absurd market that was becoming the biggest in the world at that moment. That season, 22 Brazilians played in the Chinese League, and the amounts that fueled this movement were frightening. But after all, why don’t we hear about this project anymore, which shocked the world with multimillion-dollar transfers a few years ago?
Even with many resources, crises, ambitious goals, and corruption scandals brought new challenges to China’s national football project. And football remains a problem without a solution. The failure of Chinese football In January 2025, Guangzhou FC, the biggest champion in Chinese football, was expelled from the Super League for sinking in debt.
Formerly home to Paulinho, Felipão, and Talisca, their case is the biggest example of chaos in Chinese football in recent years. But to understand how things got to this point, I need to explain a bit of the history and significance of football in China. Football in China After China ceased being an empire in 1912, the country went through many conflicts, which delayed the development of football.
One of these conflicts occurred due to a dispute over China’s identity, as there was a fight with Taiwan over who was the true heir of the old Republic of China after the 1949 Revolution. At the time, China’s Communist Party, led by Mao Tsé-Tung, wanted the whole world to recognize the People's Republic as the only official government of China. But many international organizations like the UN still recognized Taiwan, governed by the party defeated in the revolution, as an independent country.
“We now proclaim to all other governments that this government is the only one representing all the people of the People’s Republic of China. ” In a protest in 1958, the People's Republic decided to leave several organizations, including the International Olympic Committee and FIFA, a situation that only changed in the early 1980s. During this period, China did not participate in any FIFA-recognized competitions and mostly only played friendlies against friendly nations, while local football was 100% amateur.
The real turning point came only in the 1990s, when China returned to international organizations and began to look at football’s cultural and political potential. The first major reform In 1990, Liaoning was the first Chinese club to win the AFC Champions League, but the real concern was the lack of quality and results from the national team, which didn’t even qualify for the 1992 Olympics. The failure led to the first ten-year plan for Chinese football, focusing on the sport’s development and commercialization, a direct consequence of China’s 1992 economic reforms.
The idea was to give more independence to clubs, investors, and the Chinese Football Association. The state would reduce interventions, encouraging clubs to be sponsored, bought, and managed by private companies. This led to the creation of the JIA League, the first professional league in China in 1994.
For comparison, the professionalization of football in Brazil occurred in the 1930s. The first years of this reform were quite promising. Commercial revenue increased with new TV and sponsorship deals, and nearly all clubs started adopting names of major Chinese companies.
On the other hand, the new influx of money inflated the market without delivering the expected results on the field. The national team continued to fail, and the Chinese public's excitement turned into resentment. This was because long-term plans were lacking, and businessmen saw football as a new business opportunity that was thriving in marketing and money but did not care much about grassroots projects.
Even with failures, the first reform was crucial in bringing football into people's daily lives and increasing its audience. The new focus was on building infrastructure to match this growth. The second major reform In industry, economy, and global power, China was developing at an alarming speed.
In 2001, it became a member of the World Trade Organization, gaining more international credibility. Along with this, the national team achieved an unprecedented qualification for the 2002 World Cup. This was the moment to think about the second reform and create the Chinese Super League.
China had already proven itself as a sports force with its Olympic achievements and invested $45 billion in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where they finished first. Moreover, the women's national team won the AFC Women's Asian Cup multiple times and performed better in the Women’s World Cup. But why was the men's football still bad?
The New League was much more demanding in terms of professionalism and finance but had to deal with another central problem: corruption and match-fixing scandals. In 2010, this scandal exploded, and the Chinese Association created an anti-corruption committee that helped restore fans’ trust, leading to the banishment of 58 individuals in 2013. It was also during this time that the first foreign signings started, with Conca arriving in 2011 and Drgba in 2012.
In 2013, Beckham became a global ambassador for the Chinese Super League, a figure who helped promote Chinese football worldwide and was already loved in China from his days as a “Galáctico” at Real Madrid. It was also when Guangzhou began a dynasty in China, winning seven consecutive titles. The club had been relegated in 2009 due to match-fixing, but it was bought by the Evergrande real estate group while still in the second division.
When they returned to the top tier in 2011, it completely changed the landscape of Chinese football and drastically increased the money spent on transfers and wages, making clubs more dependent on large companies. Xi Jinping’s grand plan Throughout all these efforts to evolve, Chinese politicians understood the importance of football in national identity, diplomacy, and international projection. But none were as passionate about it as President Xi Jinping.
He had spoken about his three big wishes: to see China qualify for the World Cup, host a World Cup, and eventually win the title. To achieve this, after taking office in 2013, he began thinking about radical changes. The general football reform and development program for China was launched in 2015, prioritizing football as a national focus and divided into three stages.
By 2020: Strengthen football in school curriculums, open 20,000 football schools, inaugurate 70,000 fields, and have 30 to 50 million students playing. By 2030: 50,000 schools, the men's national team among the best in Asia, and the women’s national team among the best in the world. By 2050: The men’s national team among the top 20 in the world, established as a football powerhouse.
Within this plan, the Chinese Football Association would have complete autonomy and would be independent even from the Ministry of Sports, meaning even more freedom for clubs to spend huge amounts of money. The impact of the program was immediate, and China became a prominent player in the transfer market. In 2016, two players from the Super League appeared on the list of the highest-paid players in the world.
They even spent more than the Premier League in some windows and more than 300% of all other Asian leagues combined, with notable arrivals like Hulk for €55 million and Oscar for €60 million at Shanghai. Chinese money also started appearing in global football, buying clubs in Europe like Milan and Inter Milan, Atlético Madrid, and several others in England, in addition to dominating sponsorships in major global competitions. Despite the seemingly unrealistic expectations from massive investment in infrastructure, the world quickly forgot about the Chinese Super League.
The most influential players didn’t move there, and football faced some ghosts from the past. The end of the dream? Ten years after the grand plan, China's national team is currently ranked 90th in the FIFA rankings and has not achieved any significant results.
Within the Super League, the focus was on inflated salaries, not on developing local talent. The Association even tried to create new rules to favor Chinese players and imposed a salary cap in the League in 2020. The government also applied huge taxes on hiring foreigners.
But then came the pandemic, and the crisis only worsened. With no money in the stands and cuts in advertising and TV deals, several clubs sank into debt and went bankrupt. Jiangsu FC, owned by the same group as Inter Milan, closed down three months after winning the Super League title.
In 2021, a devastating real estate crisis hit China due to the Evergrande group, which had a debt of over 2. 4 trillion yuan. This spread the problem to the rest of the market, resulting in the bankruptcy of the company and Guangzhou.
With government measures to focus investments on local football and try to recover the League, the money from entrepreneurs and China’s influence in European football began to disappear. In 2024, the former president of the federation, Chen Xuyuan, was sentenced to life imprisonment for accepting bribes amounting to $11 million, causing huge damage to the country's football, according to the court. Three other former vice presidents had already been arrested in the past decade, and former national team coach Li Tie was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
A new future The severity of the penalties shows that the fight against corruption is a priority in the attempt to revive the project. At the same time, China watched as Gulf countries dominated the market, achieving what China couldn’t: hosting several mega sports events and signing global stars for their leagues. Meanwhile, its main global rival, the United States, even without a football tradition, has a World Cup ahead and continues strengthening Major League Soccer with big names.
Now, the government's and the Association’s efforts show that they haven’t given up on football. With new measures in 2024 regarding sponsorships and foreign players, but without the uncontrolled spending of the past, Xi Jinping's goals are meeting reality’s limits, and now China is seeking to restructure itself with a more realistic outlook, focusing on grassroots development and patience to achieve results. For a country with 1.
4 billion people, the chances of overcoming failure still exist, and perhaps by 2050, China will have a better vision for its own football.
