 |
CEO
of French company Lagardere Sports, Andrew Georgiou, says the Chinese Super
League is on track to become the world's dominant football championship ©Daniel
Leal-Olivas (AFP)
|
The big-spending Chinese
Super League is on track to become the world's dominant football championship,
the head of a leading sports marketing firm predicted in an AFP interview.
China
has made global headlines in recent weeks thanks to jaw-dropping megabucks
moves for Argentina striker Carlos Tevez and Brazil playmaker Oscar.
With
the country also investing heavily in grassroots football, Andrew Georgiou, CEO
of Lagardere Sports and Entertainment, believes that in time it will rival even
the super-popular English Premier League.
"There
is no doubt in my mind that at some point in time, the Chinese Super League
will become as big if not bigger than any other league in the world," he
told AFP in London on Friday.
"The
only uncertainty in my mind is how long that will take. Because fundamentally,
the market will be able to support the best players in the world playing the
best football in the world in China."
Money
has been pumping into Chinese football ever since China's President Xi Jinping
declared his intention to turn the country into a football superpower.
The
target year is 2050 and Georgiou, who has 10 years' experience in Asian sports
marketing, says there is no danger of China's ruling party losing interest in
the project before then.
"The
good thing about China is, they're never in a rush," says the Australian.
Lagardere
has helped Borussia Dortmund boost their profile in China and is due to open a
second Chinese office in Shanghai.
Georgiou
believes there will be a "quality tipping point" when the Chinese
Super League outstrips championships such as the Premier League and Spain's La
Liga, even though it might take decades.
The
Chinese Super League currently operates a quota system preventing teams from
signing more than four non-Asian players.
It
means the vast bulk of Tevez and Oscar's new team-mates are unheralded Chinese
players.
But
the hope is that by tightly controlling the numbers of foreigners, China will
allow its own home-grown players to blossom, which will in turn attract more
high-profile players from elsewhere.
- 'Tip of the iceberg' -
"Once
that local talent has been developed, that (quota) will be released and you'll
see more and more players coming to China," Georgiou says.
"Because
the money will become so big in China that it'll be really important for them
to go there.
"What
Europe has at the moment is the prestige of playing in Europe, playing in
well-established clubs, great brands that mean so much to the world.
"That'll
take longer to develop in China. It's not a function of “if”, it's a function
of “when”."
Oscar
moved to Shanghai SIPG from Chelsea for a reported fee of €60 million (US$63
million), while Tevez is reportedly set to earn €38 million per year after
joining Shanghai Shenhua from Boca Juniors.
The
eye-watering figures prompted a pledge from the Chinese government to put a cap
on transfer spending.
But
Georgiou says it is only "the tip of the iceberg", citing the vast
spending power of a growing Chinese middle class tipped to swell from 150
million people to around 550 million by 2022.
"The
disposable income and purchasing power in China in the next five to 10 years are
going to become so big, it's going to dwarf all other parts of the world,"
he said.
"This
is the fundamental starting point for how you develop your business. It's off
the back of consumers wanting to spend and consume your product. And football
in China is really popular."
Georgiou
points out that China is already a football pioneer, highlighting the speed
with which mobile has overtaken television and online as the primary means of
consuming football content in the country.
"The
Chinese consumer is skipping straight to mobile and that's a real difference in
how you communicate with fans," he said.
"They will leapfrog, they will become the leaders and the rest of the world will be catching up."
No comments:
Post a Comment