Former England international goalkeeper, Ian Walker played for Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester City and Bolton Wanderers. In 2012 he moved to China to become goalkeeper coach of Shanghai Shenhua, before crossing the city divide to join Shanghai SIPG in 2014. In Walks the Walk he talks football and China. Follow him on Twitter: @IanWalks1
Headlines may being made around the world about huge amounts of money being lavished on foreign players in order to tempt them to the Chinese Super League, but what is all but being overlooked is an arguably even bigger bubble. That of the domestic market.
The CSL has a ‘3+1’ rule - each club is allowed a maximum of four foreign players on the field, one of whom must be from an Asian Football Confederation country. The thinking behind it is to promote development of domestic talent, as well as conform to rules of the AFC Champions League, which imposes the same on each participating country.
That means seven players on the pitch must be Chinese. So say what you like about the impact of big names like Lavezzi, Ramires, Teixeira, Gervinho, Cahill et al, but the truth is the team with the best Chinese players will win the league. It is no coincidence that five times reigning league champions Guangzhou Evergrande are well represented whenever it comes time to call up the China national team squad.
There is a finite amount of top Chinese players though. So with more and more money being pumped into the Chinese game, combined with a limited pool of domestic talent - a vital commodity for any club with ambitions of silverware - the value of those players has become overinflated. The situation is such that they are worth far, far more to a Chinese club than they are in other league in the world.
Nowhere is this truer than in my department: goalkeepers. Another CSL rule stipulates that goalkeepers must be Chinese. There only a handful of good goalkeepers in the CSL. Looking at the ones that moved in the winter transfer window, the prices are astronomical. Zhang Lu moved from Liaoning to second tier Tianjin Quanjian for RMB70 million, while Gu Chao went from Hangzhou to Jiangsu for RMB50 million.
Bear in mind these are two players who are not even close to making the national team squad. I wouldn’t hazard a guess how much the three that do - Zeng Cheng, Wang Dalei and Yan Junling – would fetch, should they be sold by their respective teams, Guangzhou, Shangdong and Shanghai SIPG.
It is unlikely we will find out. They are three rich clubs in no hurry to cash in on their top talent: they don’t need the money and they won’t find an adequate replacement. It is the same with outfield players. Clubs simply won’t sell at any price, especially to their rivals, who are the only people who will place the same value on a Chinese player. The domestic market is so overheated it has effectively come to a standstill.
There is high potential for a positive upshot of all this, though. If clubs are unable to just buy themselves success –short-term thinking which sees grassroots growth getting overlooked - I anticipate we will see a lot more money being put into the development of the game from the bottom up.
We’re talking about clubs investing in academies and coaches, sourcing and nurturing of the best young local talent. Creating a conveyor belt of technically gifted Chinese players coming through the systems for years and years to come.
So the domestic bubble might just force Chinese football in the direction in needs to go long-term. One that should lead to better players for the Chinese Super League, and better players for the China national team.
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