Football fever and the Italian connection

Damiano Tommasi says the Chinese football market is very interesting, and it was the Italian World Cup-winning coach Marcello Lippi who opened the way. Provided to China Daily

Cup success underlines the game's growth as a business in China

Last year was a landmark for Chinese football as one of its teams became the first to win the Asian Football Confederation Champions League in its current format.

That team, Guangzhou Evergrande, has just re-engaged the Italian World Cup-winning coach Marcello Lippi for another three years and now has the services of his compatriot Alessandro Diamanti in the team.

Their presence in Guangzhou highlights not only the importance organizers in China place on international connections in promoting football, but the fact that far from being just a sport, the game has become a global business. And in this business China is, predictably, not just sitting on the reserves bench.

"The Chinese market, which is expanding fast, is particularly important for European clubs, Italian ones included," says Mario Sconcerti, a football historian and columnist for the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

One of the pioneers of China-Italy football contacts is Damiano Tommasi, president of the Italian Football Players Association, who played for Tianjin Teda in 2009.

"I see a lot of potential in Chinese football," Tommasi says.

"My decision to go to China was, above all, based on an existential desire, a once-in-a-lifetime experience," says Tommasi, who had earlier played for AS Roma.

"Just making money wasn't my priority."

In his book Mal di Cina (Nostalgia for China), Tommasi recalls how happy he was playing in the country. "It represented a very important moment in my life. I would go back tomorrow morning, if I were younger."

It is unclear whether a similar "existential desire" drives Diamanti at Guangzhou. Diamanti, 30, has signed for four years and will be paid 4 million euros a year, four times more than he was being paid in Italy to play for Bologna.

In Guangzhou, Diamanti has replaced the Argentine midfielder Dario Conca.

"I think Diamanti will be an even better attacking midfielder," says Paolo Condo, a sports journalist with the Italian daily Gazzetta dello Sport.

"They are simply professionals marketing their skills to the highest bidder in international football."

The Chinese football market is extremely interesting, and it was Lippi who opened the way, he says.

"Everyone knows that professional players stand to make a lot of money there."

Top international coaches can also make a fortune in China, one of them being Lippi, whose two-and-a-half year contract, signed with Guangzhou Evergrande in 2012, is reputed to have been worth 30 million euros.

Lippi, who helped Italy win the World Cup in Germany in 2006, gets a lot of special treatment wherever he goes in China because of his excellent work, Condo says.

"In China, he is treated like an emperor and has almost become a de facto minister for sport."

However, Mario Sconcerti looks beyond individuals, whether they be coaches or players, seeing the game's future in China more broadly.

"The game will become more important in the country and play a prominent role internationally in the near future. Chinese teams have a lot of work ahead of them but they have enormous potential to make huge progress, and that is highly encouraging."

Diamanti's joining Evergrande was no doubt "a money-making opportunity", Sconcerti says, but there would be more to it than that.

"China has long fascinated players. Signing with a club in China is not like moving to the United Arab Emirates or Australia. An Italian player cannot have much scope for improvement when playing for an Arab or Australian team, whereas Chinese football offers many prospects since it is making good progress in all aspects of the game, technical aspects in particular. I think the Chinese football championships are a very serious affair."

It does not matter that football is not a part of Chinese culture, Sconcerti says.

"Anyone, anywhere can learn how to play football; it's a universal and distinctly human game. I'm certain that in less than 10 years the world of Chinese football will be one of the most ambitious in the world."

For the moment, Sconcerti sees Chinese football as "a heap of energy that needs to be better organized, especially given the gigantic scale when it comes to China. We would need another 10 geniuses like Lippi, capable of harnessing this enormous potential".

"Chinese football players exude tremendous energy and speed," he says.

Lippi is also the rector of a football school near Guangzhou, a joint project of Evergrande and the Spanish club Real Madrid. The aim of the school is to produce and encourage talent by training young Chinese players as if football were their national sport.

Antonello Valentini, general director of the Italian Football Federation, reckons Chinese footballers have a lot to learn from the Italian style of play, and that more top Italian footballers are bound to sign lucrative contracts with Chinese clubs.

But, the most important things is how the country's clubs will go about thinking strategically and building for the future, he says.

"If there are enough business magnates willing to put up the large sums to go shopping for good players, then Chinese football will grow from strength to strength."

Continued domination by teams such as Guangzhou may encourage other Chinese clubs to spend more on their own teams, he says.

"I guess this is already happening, and this is just the beginning of big spending. Recruiting talent is the main way for wealthier clubs to improve their game. The clubs want to grow and fill the streets with enthusiastic fans."

Even as Chinese football fans enjoy seeing their compatriots playing the game, the sport is also growing in the country on the back of the popularity of overseas league matches.

"The Chinese are fascinated with Italian clubs and regard them highly," Valentini says.

"They are in love with Italian football because it combines a high degree of professionalism with a temperament that makes Italian players technically superior to other European ones."

The Italian Serie A was the first European league to be broadcast on Chinese television, from 1990, and is one of the most popular in China. The matches are now telecast in China in prime time every Sunday.

Over the past few years, two Italian Supercoppa (Italian Super Cup Trophy) games have been played in China to promote Italian football, with admission free. Matches have been held in Beijing twice, Napoli playing Juventus last year.

The globalization of football is well illustrated by the Italian clubs Internazionale (Inter Milan), which is now owned by the tycoon Erick Thohir, an Indonesian, and AS Roma, whose president and a major shareholder is James Pallotta, an American. Thohir is now said to be looking at a marketing strategy in China.

"Thohir wants to enter the Chinese market as soon as possible," says Beppe Baresi, Inter's assistant coach.

Valentini says the Italian Football Federation has an agreement with the Chinese Football Association through the Fondazione Italia-Cina. "We are extremely interested in giving assistance to Chinese football clubs, in helping them grow technically."

Part of that help includes making the federation's training school near Florence available to Chinese footballers.

For China Daily