I recently met with Shu Yuhui, president of Quanjian Group, a large Chinese healthcare company. It was at the end of May. He was watching a game on the large TV that covered a wall of his office, and taking constant phone calls. The callers were making reckless promises like “We’ll help you buy Aubameyang” and “We can get you Alexis Sanchez”.
Shu Yuhui is the owner of Tianjin Quanjian, a professional football club in the Chinese Super League. Thanks to Shu’s huge investments in the team, Quanjian grew quickly and won the China League One (the second division) last year. Right now, the team lies fifth in the CSL. It’s a great achievement, especially given that this is still their first year since promotion to the CSL.
Like other Chinese Super League clubs, Quanjian recruited world-class football stars, including Brazil’s forward Alexandre Pato and the Belgian midfielder Axel Witsel. Shu Yuhui wanted one more big-name player. It was no secret that that player was Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Quanjian had been very public about its intentions to sign him, and Shu Yuhui was ready to pay 80 million euros.
But the Chinese government got in the way. The Chinese football community was determined to make their league the most popular in Asia and its national football team the best. But they had gone overboard. In December 2016, Shanghai SIPG signed Oscar from Chelsea. The fee for his transfer was 60 million pounds. Considering the size of the Asian football market, there was no way for that money to be made back. Such unrealistic transfers continued, with Shanghai SIPG recruiting Hulk for 46 million pounds and Jiangsu Suning signing Alex Teixeira for 36 million pounds.
All this led to a change in stance from Xi Jinping, China’s president. Xi had originally encouraged active investment in Chinese football, prompting Chinese multimillionaires to invest all their private assets into football teams. But when Xi pointed to the excessive competition by bringing up Oscar’s transfer fee at a meeting, the whole Chinese football community changed its attitude as well. In order to discourage the absurd transfer fees, the Chinese Football Association reduced the foreign player quota in January 2017. Under the new regulations, teams were allowed to sign five foreign players, but only three were allowed on the pitch at a given time.
A second measure to reduce transfer spending began in the summer transfer market. The new CSL regulations stipulate that clubs match transfer fees for foreign players with equal donations to the CFA. This is a surprisingly extreme restriction. It means that if Shu Yuhui were to pay 80 million euros to sign Aubameyang, he’d have to donate another 80 million, and the total expense would come to 160 million euros. At the time of the announcement of the regulations, this amount exceeded the world record for a transfer fee.
This didn’t stop Quanjian’s pursuit of Aubameyang though. Shu looked for ways to reduce the transfer fee, at least on paper, by either signing Aubameyang on loan with the option of a permanent transfer, or else by paying the fee in installments. However, it’s simply not possible to recruit a major player like Aubameyang on loan with the option of a transfer. In the end, Quanjian signed Anthony Modeste, a forward with the third-highest goals tally in the Bundesliga. Modeste is a star in his own right but is much cheaper than Aubameyang, and it was possible to sign him on loan with an option of a permanent transfer. Aubameyang’s attempts to move failed, and he will most likely remain in Dortmund.
This summer, the ambitious Quanjian was the only owner to try to sign players, but a majority of Chinese clubs will want to do so in December. Chinese football clubs are confused, not knowing whether to sign foreign players or not.
The consequences for Korea’s World Cup hopes
Xi Jinping’s remark brought on a crisis for the Korean national football team, as can be seen in the following chain of events: Xi Jinping’s remark > reduced number of foreign players on the pitch > crisis for Korean defenders in Chinese football clubs > weaker performances of the Korean national team. Let’s take a closer look at what happened.
The Asian Football Confederation recommends that clubs field a maximum of four overseas players. Three of these players can be of any non-Chinese nationality. The fourth must be from an AFC member country—the “Asian quota”.
Korean players are the most popular choice in this Asian quota. They have the best skills on the continent, their midfielders and defenders are seen as the most devoted and toughest, and they’re in high demand among the wealthiest clubs in the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, China. Indeed, at the beginning of the season, nine out of 16 Chinese Super League clubs had players from Korea. When their Korean defender missed the first half of the season due to an injury, Guangzhou Evergrande went as far as to sign another Korean player, Kim Hyung-il, on a six-month contract. It’s also important to mention the team Yanbian Funde. Yanbian, the team’s town, is home to many Chaoxianzu, or Chinese people of Korean descent. Most Yanbian players are Chaoxianzu and speak Korean, and their manager is Korean as well. When their two Korean players had to return to Korea for the mandatory military service, the team signed other Korean players to take their place.
The CSL’s removal of the Asian quota this year was a huge blow to Korean players in teams other than Yanbian Funda. No teams were willing to put Korean players on the pitch when they had better known foreign players to choose from. Hebei China Fortune would put out star players from European leagues—like Stephane Mbia, Hernanes, and Ezequiel Lavezzi—and make Kim Ju-young watch from the stands. Shanghai Greenland Shenhua chose Carlos Tevez, Fredy Guarin, and Giovanni Moreno as starters, while Kim Kee-hee didn’t even make the lineup. When faced with the choice between a player whose salary exceeded 10 million euros and a Korean player who was paid a few million euros, the choice was obvious: they would field the more expensive player.
Around the same time, the Korean national team was facing uncertainties in the qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup. Coach Uli Stielike’s abilities seemed to have reached their limit, and it was a major weakness that most defenders on the national team were substitutes on their club teams. Even Hong Jeong-ho, the last defender on the national team to have played in Europe, had signed with Jiangsu Suning in 2016. In March, Korea suffered a shocking 1–0 loss to China and in June they were defeated in an away game with Qatar, a weaker team.
As summer approached, however, Korean players began to regain their position in their club teams. The key was the skills and ardor unique to Korean players. The day after I met Shu Yuhui in Tianjin, I had a chance to meet Kwon Kyung-won, the Korean player at Quanjian. At the beginning of the season, Pato and Witzel were always chosen over Kwon. He was in constant competition against the two Brazilian forwards for a spot. “I was someone in-between foreign players and Chinese players,” Kwon told me. “When the season began, I was in the best condition, so I was confident that I’d be a starter. But after sitting out for three games, reality hit me, and I thought, ‘Oh, I’m not going to be able to play.’”
Kwon said being excluded was very difficult for him. But it didn’t get bad enough for the manager of the team, Fabio Cannavaro, to notice. Kwon trained diligently. And finally an opportunity presented itself. At the end of May, Kwon was named in the starting lineup. The team won three consecutive games, in which Kwon was included in the starting lineups, and conceded only one goal. Kwon established himself as a key player. Managers also began to realize that games were easier to win with at least one foreign player in defense instead of using all three as forwards.
The situation was similar for other Korean players in the Chinese Super League. Shanghai Greenland Shenhua’s Kim Kee-hee, Hebei China Fortune’s Kim Ju-young, Tianjin Teda’s Hwang Seok-ho, Guangzhou Evergrande’s Kim Young-gwon, and Chongqing Dangdai Lifan’s Jung Woo-young had all sat and watched games from the stands early in the season, but they are consistent starters. This is all down to the hard work they kept putting in, even when they were in the reserves.
The Korean national football team replaced Uli Stielike with Shin Tae-yong as the head manager. Now there are just two more games left in the World Cup qualifiers. If the Korean team fails to maintain its position in the group, it won’t qualify for the World Cup. With so much at stake, the Korean players in Chinese Super League clubs have become the key players once again. They are Kim Kee-hee, Kim Young-gwon, Kim Ju-young, Jung Woo-young, and Kwon Kyung-won, who will be playing his first match for his country.
Despite the uncertainties in Chinese football, Korean football players have succeeded in becoming key players for their clubs. Their last challenge is to prove themselves on the Korean national team. In terms of football, China has been in Korea’s wake for a long time. Some have expressed concerns that the skills of Korean players on Chinese teams will deteriorate inc the coming years—the so-called “Chinese-footbalization” of Korean players. It is up to the Korean defenders to prove that this “Chinese–footbalization” is a just a myth. The Korean national team will play Iran on August 31, and Uzbekistan on September 6.