Tweet This
- For a hefty fee, venerated European clubs bring their game plans to China: relocating coaches and staff and re-creating playing environments that seek to inculcate China's youngest players in the highly-localized soccer cultures that grew organically half a world away.
- For a hefty fee, venerated European clubs bring their game plans to China: relocating coaches and staff and re-creating playing environments that seek to inculcate China's youngest players in the highly-localized soccer cultures that grew organically half a world away.
Today, hundreds of soccer academies across China privately train and evaluate the next generation of footballers, who will soon carry the nation's lofty World Cup aspirations. And to get that done, those academies sell imported goods to high-paying customers.
Chinese Football Association policy will require all clubs in China's top two leagues, the Chinese Super League and China League 1, to field under-19, under-17, under-15, under-14, and under-13 youth teams, to compete in a CFA-organized competition by 2019. The academy system trades on the opportunities that will be available in these youth teams.
Currently, of the 16 Chinese Super League sides, only four have established youth programs. And it's likely that, in the scramble to organize the programs, many clubs will partner with youth academies to bring scouted youth players to their development programs, says Mário Castro, a Shanghai-based coach for Toulouse FC, a club in France's Ligue 1 with that partners with a Shenzhen-based club, SPHQ FC to run youth programs.
Export culture
Today, China's soccer academies run the gamut of business models, including agreements between clubs and local clubs, soccer academies, and sports development groups. Other academies are simple branding contracts: The Ronaldo Academy, which also started early in 2015, is a series of institutes run by a Chinese coaching staff and administration. The academy paid to brand itself with the Brazilian superstar's name.
"I'm ready to help China realize its football dream," Ronaldo said in an appearance at Beijing Worker's Stadium announcing the academies. "I think China can be a major player on the world stage one day." He promptly returned to Brazil and has had essentially no involvement in the academy.
More on Forbes: China Just Banned Tattoos On Their Soccer Players, And It Could Cost Them
But many European clubs offer full programs. In Europe's already robust professional soccer industry, exporting their training models to China–where European soccer clubs already boast strong brand recognition–opens up new revenue streams and chances for development. Some European soccer clubs have become global brands who have yet to truly profit off their popularity abroad.
Italian side Inter Milan was the first European club to enter the Chinese market in 2015 when national regulations eased up, allowing foreign sports academies to be established within China's borders. Inter Milan set up academies in conjunction with its Chinese parent, Suning Sports Group, and now runs four academies and 59 school programs for players aged four to 18, and five regional training centers, where Inter Milan technical staff instruct 30 Chinese coaches.
In late 2017, Dutch club Ajax announced a deal with Chinese Super League side Guangzhou R&F announced a five-year partnership, for "millions of euros." The Dutch club agreed for the Ajax Coaching Academy, one of Europe's top youth academy programs, to staff and run a gigantic Guangzhou-based academy for promising young Chinese players.
A growing business in a closing space
Toulouse FC is one of the newest, and fastest growing, club-run academies in China. Toulouse began a partnership with SPHQ FC, a Shenzhen-based club, in 2016.
Castro, one of Toulouse FC's Shanghai coaches, grew up playing soccer in Portugal, and for years coached professional teams until he came to Shanghai to work with Chinese youth teams. Alongside Castro himself, the Shanghai-based staff consists of one Spanish coach, one Chinese coach, and three administrative staff, who market, advertise, develop youth products, and merchandising, and coordinate with Toulouse FC's international branch.
More on Forbes: China Badly Wants Its Own Soccer Superstar, But Will They Accept One Who's Muslim?
Castro's players are young -- under-8 and under-10. Many of them fantasize about playing at the top level. Others are there because their parents are looking for a "well-rounded" appearance on school applications. They idolize players who achieved fame in Europe–Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic–and they watch more European soccer than Chinese.
Each July, the teams go to France. And twice per year, staff from Toulouse fly out to China to check in on the clubs partnership teams. The industry, in China at least, is, of course, a temporary solution. The entire goal is for the European coaches and staff to be no longer needed one day. "In the future," Castro says, "with young teams in the clubs themselves, these kinds of [academy] programs will end."
But no one is sure how long that will take. New restrictions on club teams handed down by the CFA, while meant to help the Chinese game grow, stunt development while they take effect. For the CFA to meet its well-publicized goals, they need children playing at the most competitive level frequently. And the academy system still fails to guarantee enough children the amount of playing time they need.
"They need to start immediately with youth leagues all around China, maybe start with province models and have a national league with the best teams" Castro told me. Academies and clubs are clustered around the cities in the east, and mostly absent from the underdeveloped west. "The kids need to start playing every weekend, so when they get to 19 or 20 [years old], they will be prepared to play at a professional level."
