A New Power in Football?

Football in Asia, predominantly China and India is growing four fold. The introduction of the new Indian Super League has brought many ex-internationals to the country, including former Man City player Elano, Nicolas Anelka as a head coach, while Alessandro Del Piero featured during the 2014 Indian season and had a short spell with Sydney FC in Australia. This also not forgetting the ludicrous sums of money spent by the Chinese clubs this transfer window.

Football fans in Asia usually affiliate themselves with an English club or else either Barcelona or Real Madrid. With a population of over 4 billion people, it is easy to see why the Barclays Premier League is the most watched league in the world. It is broadcast to China through SuperSports while in India it is the most widely distributed sports programme. The Indian Super League has tried to attract more viewers to the local football in India.

In India, the average attendance for the the 2015 Super League season was 27,111 which, when compared to that of the Premier League appears measly, but is in fact 5,000 more than the average in Serie A. Despite being a cricketing nation, the Indians do get out to support their newly formed league. The attendances in China would be similar to that in Italy - approximately 22,000. It is perhaps limited due to the unstable political situation restricting teams in certain regions and alienating many potential supporters. It also has to be noted that the population of both India and China dwarfs that of any league in Europe and are one of the worst performing countries in terms of sporting success to population. In contrast, the top tier in Japan only draws an average attendance of approximately 7,000, although the country does have a considerably lower population than India and China with 127 million inhabitants.

Last month marks the 10th anniversary since Australian football moved into the Asian Confederation. The men's side won the Asian Cup last year and finished runner up in the edition previous to that in 2011. Similarly, the female's have encountered similar success, winning the competition twice and losing in the final on another occasion. On the club scene, they have enjoyed recent success in the Champions League with Western Sydney Wanderers winning the competition in 2014 and Adelaide United reaching the final in 2008. On the domestic scene, they've improved, but not so much on the national stage as we will find out later.

Looking at China in particular, they have developed a bit of a reputation for recruiting older players for their sides. More and more money is being spent by the Chinese clubs with Guangzhou Evergrande flushing £45m on Atletico Madrid flop Jackson Martinez. It's hard to believe that Martinez only joined the club last summer scoring just 2 league goals in 15 appearances, Atletico must be licking their lips. This transfer smashed the record for the highest amount Chinese side has ever spent on a player with the previous record being £25m - set a week before with the transfer of Ramires from Chelsea to Jiangsu Suning. Similarly, Hebei China Fortune FC, forked out £13.5m to acquire Gervinho from AS Roma in their bid to remain in the Chinese Super League after gaining promotion last year. And he wasn't even that good.

It has been confirmed today that Liverpool's transfer target, Alex Teixeira has been signed by a Jiangsu Suning who are willing to pay the €50m fee to release him from his contract. He's just another one of the contingent that have plied or the potential to ply their trade in the Premier League moving to East Asia. Looking at the Asian club Championship (Asian Champions League), South Korea have the most wins by nation with Pohang Steelers leading the pack with 3 titles. Chinese side Guangzhou Evergrande have won two out of the last three competitions and with the signings made by the former and other Chinese sides, we could witness the nation dominate the competition in the near future. These transfer are firing Chinese football and football in Asia up the rankings and it would surprise me if it were to become the most watched league outside of Europe.

In recent history, the Asian sides don't tend to do too well in the World Cup. When Japan and South Korea hosted the event back in 2002, South Korea reached the semi finals under the stewardship of Guus Hiddink, the best an Asian side has done in the history of the tournament. On their way to the fourth place finish, South Korea beat Portugal in the group stages, Italy in the last 16 and Spain in the quarter finals. They didn't have the easy route. In the most recent competition, none of the four sides that qualified, made it out of the group stages.

For all their riches in the domestic game, China have really not made an impact on the international stage, reaching just the one World Cup in 2002 where they were knocked out in the group stages. Surely with the huge population the likes of India and China should be doing better on the international scene than they already are?  Obviously we need to take into consideration other sports that the nations play with cricket being the dominant force in India. In Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski's book entitled Soccernomics, they mention a chapter on Guus Hiddink's journey with both South Korea. Hiddink took over in 2001 and instilled the ECC philosophy of football, (European Economic Community) a fast, powerful, collectivist style of play. Safe to say it worked. Another impact into the disappointment on the world stage for India and China is that they can be considered developing countries. China are listed 91st and India are listed 135th on the human development index (HDI) as of 2013. If the children of a country are succumbing to illnesses, their growth will be stunted leaving not as developed as someone who was fed three times a day and lived comfortably.

With the likes of Australia and South Korea high in the HDI table, where does that leave them? When Prime Minister Paul Keating announced intentions of Australia joining the Asian confederation in 1994, many thought this would drastically improve the national team, and it has, but probably not to the extent that they thought. Guus Hiddink left Australia at the end of the 2006 World Cup after a very positive experience in the tournament but the players to supplement stars such as Mark Viduka, Harry Kewell and Tim Cahill weren't up to standard and Australia drifted back into mediocrity once again.

After the spirited performance of the Socceroos in 2006, Financial Times Sydney Reporter, Raphael Minder, described their slump as an 'Aussie inferiority complex' aided by the island's geographical isolation and colonial history. This is something that is plausible, particularly as psychology plays a big part in modern sport. Australia failed to pick up a point in the 2014 World Cup group, but that's rather unsurprising considering the copious amounts of talent within the ranks of the Dutch, Spanish and Chileans.

Domestic football in Asia seems to be going from strength to strength however the same cannot be said for the national sides. With the influx of new talent into the Indian and particularly the Chinese leagues, the foreign players may aid the home-grown players in their development as they learn more efficient skills from their experience in Europe. The only way is up for the domestic football in Asia.

A Step Too Far for FIFA?

When Qatar was announced as the hosts of the 2022 World Cup, it caused a tremendous amount of controversy and now with recent influential football figures backing the proposal for it to clash with the Winter Olympics, the feud could spark into life again.

I remember in 2010 being told that the World Cup was being held in Qatar, and looking towards my friends with a quizzical appearance and in my naivety and adolescent nature retorted with the sentence, "I thought a guitar was a musical instrument?" From that short anecdote, I am sure you can tell that what I am about to write will not be showing any great faith in the actions of FIFA with regards to the allocation of the 2022 World Cup.

In fairness to Qatar, if they can pull of stadiums
like this, then they deserve some credit

To begin with, how Qatar were ever elected hosts of the World Cup ahead of Australia and the USA is beyond me. As far as I can see, both of these nations would be better equipped to host the tournament than Qatar. Australia and the US already has quality fully developed stadiums from hosting the Rugby World Cup in 2003 and 1994 World Cup respectively, including the Suncorp Stadium, ANZ Stadium and the Docklands Stadium, all of which hold over 52,000 seats. Likewise, the Americans have little problem with world class stadiums, Sun Life Stadium and Michigan Stadium to name a couple. As we saw from the World Cup past, construction of the stadia in Brazil came under critical analysis from the higher powers in the footballing world, but they decided to persevere, and numerous deaths were caused due to cursory preparations and the pressure that the stadia all had to be ready in time.

We're no more than 8 years from the beginning of the World Cup and already there have been claims that basic human rights denied to the workers. In addition to this, The Guardian newspaper have alleged that identity papers have been taken away from them and that their payments would not be paid on time, or even possibly at all. You'd think that a nation such as Qatar who built all their riches on oil, would be able to part themselves with a few coins and give them to the workers, who are building the stadia to facilitate this momentous event? From where I am sitting, it doesn't appear that this is the case.

Back in March, I wrote a piece entitled, "Will the World Cup be a Success?" in relation to my worries over the World Cup in Brazil, it seems now that I will be doing another one in the future to pen my concerns about it in Qatar. We were very cynical of the 8 deaths in the construction of the Brazilian stadiums, but when rumours sparked that 900 migrants have already lost their lives, FIFA and the Qatari football federation have questions to answer. In the report compiled by The Guardian, it estimates that up to 4,000 workers may die due to inadequate safety regulations and other causes by the time a ball is kicked. Rather selfishly however, FIFA may see this frightening statistic as a dampener on their reputation.


Disregarding the fact that FIFA have given the prized tournament to, in my opinion an unworthy nation, I tepidly applaud them for pushing the motion of staging the World Cup in the winter. Yes it will sent the European leagues' schedules up the left, which Richard Scudamore is arguing, but player safety is paramount and he seems to be neglecting this issue. Even in winter, the middle eastern country gets highs of 24oC, marginally higher than what we get here in Northern Ireland, so you could imagine what the temperature would be like in the peak of summer. It's not just the players that will suffer, the management and spectators alike will. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that alcohol dehydrates, so this doesn't look bright for the English fans who will no doubt have to drown their sorrows with the local beverage.

Controversy surrounds the 2022 host city and things only look like intensifying as the tournament draws nearer, while Australia and USA will be left cursing at how they didn't become hosts of the competition. While Blatter's corrupt regime rules over the world of football, it could be a long time before 'sensible' decisions return to our game.