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China
coach Gao Hongbo: Syria defeat does not end World Cup hopes
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China's ambitions to
become a global soccer power are facing a stark reality check after the
national team's coach stepped down following defeats to Uzbekistan and war-torn
Syria, leaving in tatters a bid to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.
Reuters
report continues:
Chinese
coach Gao Hongbo resigned after a 2-0 defeat to Uzbekistan on Tuesday night in
Tashkent, days after losing to Syria. The slump underlines the challenge facing
President Xi Jinping, who wants China to host - and win - the World Cup.
With
Xi's blessing, China had been in a bullish soccer mood. It invested billions of
dollars to develop grassroots soccer academies, brought high-profile players
and managers into China from overseas, and is buying into global soccer assets
from Italian club Inter Milan to England's Manchester City.
Beijing
wants China to compete with the best teams in the world by 2050, while
investors like Inter Milan's new Chinese owner Suning Commerce Group talk about
setting global soccer supply chains from clubs to media outlets and
merchandising deals.
But
many sports industry insiders question whether China can live up its bold
ambitions.
"The
massive investment in football, and in particular President Xi's personal
involvement, has raised expectations to wholly unrealistic levels," said
Mark Dreyer, Beijing-based founder of sports information website China Sports
Insider.
China,
ranked 78th in the world behind St. Kitts and Nevis and Libya, has qualified
just once for the World Cup finals. That was in 2002, when the team lost all
three games without scoring a goal.
"This
isn't going to change for years, and no coach - foreign or otherwise - can
perform the sort of miracles that would be needed, no matter what Chinese fans
or President Xi might expect," Dreyer added.
"FAKE
BUBBLE"
Sentiment
amongst Chinese fans was more one of resignation than anger on Wednesday
morning, a reflection of how local supporters have long had to put up with
rampant graft and low quality in the domestic game.
"Now
the coach has resigned, why don't we just disband the whole team and let the FA
officials go home," said one person on China's popular microblog site Sina
Weibo. "Let's stop wasting taxpayers' money and use it for something more
important."
Tuesday's
defeat left the Chinese team at the bottom of its qualifying group, below Iran,
Uzbekistan, South Korea, Syria and Qatar after the first four games in Asia's
third round of qualification with six games remaining.
The
state-run Global Times newspaper said the seeming prosperity of domestic
football, which has seen huge sums spent on player transfers and star foreign
managers, was just "a fake bubble" pumped up by "crazy
capital" and imported talent.
The
broader Chinese investment splurge into soccer, which has sparked up to $3
billion worth of Chinese deals for global sporting assets since the end of last
year, is also facing road bumps.
China's
richest man, Wang Jianlin, threw cold water over investments in overseas soccer
clubs in August, saying it was tough to actually make any money. Wang's Dalian
Wanda Group has a stake in Spanish club Atletico Madrid.
Chinese-owned
clubs Inter Milan and Aston Villa are struggling, despite big promises by their
new Chinese owners, while Chinese deals for Italian giants AC Milan and
England's Hull City have been hit by question marks over financing.
Lou
Yichen, a veteran soccer commentator and vice president of online broadcaster
PPTV, saw a real risk that the investment boom could leave Chinese firms and
clubs heavily in the red - with no guarantee of long-term success.
"Clubs themselves are getting quick results by leaning heavily on high levels of investment and paying sky-high prices (for players)," Lou said. "In the near-term at least, it's going to be hard to get this money back."
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