Winning team has cure for China's game

With China's national football team struggling, fans had little to celebrate until a South China team, Guangzhou Evergrande, claimed the Asian Football Confederation Champions League prize in November.

"Evergrande has helped improve Chinese football's image internationally and set an example for professionalization," says Cai Zhenhua, head of the Chinese Football Association and China's vice-minister for sports.

Since being taken over by real estate company Evergrande in 2010, the Cantonese club has boasted top management, investments in the player-transfer market and rewards to motivate players.

Its impressive results in domestic leagues, three consecutive Chinese Super League titles, and the AFC Champions League have won over fans while showing the benefit of a professional, market-oriented operation.

Plans call for more of a professional approach to be used in China's league system, Cai says.

The CFA will do away with its league department, which used to centralize management powers for all levels of domestic leagues, and hand more authority to the Chinese Super League company formed in 2005 to run the league.

The association will also set up an independent legal department, an ethics and fair-play committee and an arbitration board. Such moves are expected to solve the problem that arose because the CFA both operated and supervised the league, providing opportunities for fixing matches and bribery.

The CFA also hopes to enlarge its pro-league system by encouraging more private investors to establish clubs. E-commerce giant Alibaba Group has struck a deal with Evergrande Group to pay 1.2 billion yuan ($191 million) for a 50 percent stake in Guangzhou Evergrande.

More Chinese players should go to European leagues, says Shao Jiayi, one of China's most successful players in overseas leagues. After a disappointing 2002 World Cup campaign, Shao was signed by then Bundesliga club 1860 Munich and played nine years in the top German league.

"We should allow more young players to transfer to European leagues even if it's in the second or third-tier leagues. The high-level training and professional attitude there will help them improve," says Shao, who returned to domestic league club Beijing Guo'an in 2011.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 06/20/2014 page24)