China and India are two of the economic powerhouses in the world but none of them have ever been known to be a strong footballing nation. China has always been among the top performers in Olympics but has never been able to form a national football team which can compete with the top European and Latin American teams.
While India is struggling to make an impact at the international level and its FIFA ranking is getting worse every year, China, with a huge investment in its football league, has given a signal that it is serious about improving the game. The Chinese Super League can soon become the biggest football league outside of Europe.
India, with its own Indian Super League (ISL), has shown the intent to develop the game at grassroots level but international-level infrastructure is still absent and everything available is still way off the mark to trigger a football revolution in the country. ISL, which is played for around two and half months, is more like a football tournament, while the Chinese Super League starts in February or March and ends in November or December - aping most of the European league seasons that go on for an entire year.
Guangzhou Evergrande, one of the biggest clubs in Asia and the reigning Asian club champions, paid a whooping £31 million to get Atletico Madrid striker Jackson Martinez.
The Martinez deal was the biggest in the January transfer window and it got everyone notice how the Chinese Super League is trying to outdo the Major League Soccer (MLS) and the ISL in attracting the big names from Europe and Brazil.
A few days later, the Martinez transfer record was broken when another Chinese club, Jiangsu Suning, signed Brazilian midfielder Alex Teixeira for £38 million and Ramires from the English Premier League champion Chelsea for £21 million.
The Chinese Super League had spent around £200 million in its transfer window, going past the money spent by the EPL clubs in the January transfer window. Clubs like Shanghai SIPG, the 2015 runners-up, are being led by former England coach Sven Goran Eriksson, have Asamoah Gyan as their top striker and are reportedly targeting former Arsenal and Manchester United star Robin Van Persie.
The reason we are seeing this sudden splurge is also because the president of China, Xi Jinping, is encouraging to spend more money in an attempt to transform the Chinese Super League into one of the best in the world. Not only that, the Chinese government is now very serious about producing local talent and has launched a scheme to get school children into playing football. The target of the scheme is to get 20,000 schools playing the sport on a weekly basis by 2017; and Guangzhou, with the help of football giants Real Madrid, has built the biggest football academy in the world.
Jinping is a big football fan and a Manchester United supporter and during his recent state visit to UK stopped off at Manchester City's training ground and was also seen taking a selfie with Sergio Aguero. The Chinese Super League is yet to produce a big local but in order to improve their 93rd FIFA ranking, they are trying everything they can.
The money received by the Chinese clubs from television broadcasters has also multiplied by more than 20 times this season. The money collected in the 2015 season was just $9 million but it has gone up to $200 million this year.
There are a few things that the ISL can learn from its Chinese counterpart if it wants to become a major league and help the country produce world class talent. Unlike the football clubs in the ISL, the Chinese clubs are not only going for big names but those names that are in the prime of their career. The involvement of government gives investors a hope that the league is going to develop in the near future and also makes it a more sustainable.
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