Carlos Pulleiro Méndez Relações Internacionais e futebol: limites e possibilidades para que China

se converta em uma potência global de futebol em 2050

Relações Internacionais e futebol: limites e

possibilidades para que China se converta

em uma potência global de futebol em 2050

International Relations and football: limits and

possibilities for China to become a global football power

by 2050

Relaciones Internacionales y fútbol: Límites y

posibilidades para que China se convierta en una potencia

global del fútbol en 2050

Carlos Pulleiro Méndez1

DOI: 10.5752/P.2317-773X.2021v9.n3.p7

Recebido em: 04 de agosto de 2020

Aprovado em: 16 de dezembro de 2020

R

Com a liderança do presidente Xi Jinping, a revitalização do futebol se converteu

em um objetivo estratégico essencial para China. Seus três desejos são se classi-

car regularmente, organizar e ganhar a Copa do Mundo FIFA para 2050. Con-

siderando o estadismo do sistema esportivo internacional e a motivação política

da China para alcançar objetivos tão ambiciosos, este artigo aplicará uma análise

do futebol sob a perspectiva das Relações Internacionais. Nesse sentido, são iden-

ticadas três premissas básicas para a análise do futebol: 1. O interesse nacional

no esporte é conquistar títulos. 2. O interesse nacional não é tão relevante quanto

a habilidade e capacidade do Estado de vencer. 3. Mais recursos e investimentos

podem garantir melhor desempenho, mas não necessariamente ganhar títulos.

Concluindo, embora o futebol na China tenha tido um desenvolvimento conside-

rável ao longo desta década, se considerarmos que a conversão de recursos em

títulos não é a mesma para todos os países, a China pode enfrentar um paradoxo

de poder, sendo incapaz de tirar proveito de suas habilidades extraordinárias. para

obter títulos e se tornar uma potência mundial do futebol.

Palavras-chave: China. Futebol. política esportiva. Relações Internacionais.

Copa do Mundo FIFA.

A

Under the leadership of president Xi Jinping, the revitalisation of football has

become a key strategic goal for China. His three wishes are to qualify regularly,

host and win the FIFA World Cup by 2050. Considering the statehood of the

international sports system and the Chinese political motivation to achieve

1. Research fellow at the European Re-

search Centre of the School of Interna-

tional Studies (Sun Yat-sen University)

email: pulleiro@mail.sysu.edu.cn Orcid

ID: 0000-0001-5934-9862

estudos internacionais • Belo Horizonte, ISSN 2317-773X, v. 9, n. 4, (dez. 2021), p. 7-24

such ambitious goals, this paper is going to apply an analysis of football from

an International Relations perspective. In this regard, three basic premises are

identied for the analysis of football: 1. The national interest in sport is winning

titles. 2. The national interest is not as relevant as the state’s ability and capacity

to win. 3. More resources and investments may guarantee a better performance,

but not necessarily winning titles. In conclusion, although football in China is

having a considerable development along this decade, if we consider that the

conversion of resources into titles is not the same for every country, China

might face a power paradox, being incapable to take advantage of its extraordi-

nary capacities to win titles and become a global football power.

Keywords: China. football. sports policy. International Relations. FIFA World Cup.

R

Bajo el liderazgo del presidente Xi Jinping, la revitalización del fútbol se ha

convertido en un objetivo estratégico clave para China. Sus tres deseos son clas-

icarse regularmente, organizar y ganar la Copa Mundial de la FIFA para 2050.

Considerando la estatalidad del sistema deportivo internacional y la motivación

política de China para lograr objetivos tan ambiciosos, este artículo aplicará un

análisis del fútbol desde una perspectiva de Relaciones Internacional. En este

sentido, se identican tres premisas básicas para el análisis del fútbol: 1. El interés

nacional en el deporte es ganar títulos. 2. El interés nacional no es tan relevante

como la habilidad y capacidad del estado para ganar. 3. Más recursos e inver-

siones pueden garantizar un mejor rendimiento, pero no necesariamente ganar

títulos. En conclusión, aunque el fútbol en China está teniendo un desarrollo

considerable a lo largo de esta década, si tenemos en cuenta que la conversión de

recursos en títulos no es la misma para todos los países, China podría enfrentarse

a una paradoja de poder, siendo incapaz de aprovechar sus extraordinarias capaci-

dades. para conseguir títulos y convertirse en una potencia futbolística mundial.

Palabras clave: China. Fútbol. política deportiva. Relaciones Internacionales.

Copa Mundial FIFA.

Introduction

Since Xi Jinping took oce as General Secretary of the Chinese

Communist Party (CCP) in 2012, the revitalisation of football has become

a key strategic goal for China. In this regard, the Medium and Long-Term

Development Plan of Chinese Football (2016-2050) expects to place China

among the Asian top teams by 2030, qualifying regularly for the World

Cup; and in long-term, becoming a leading football power, hoping to win

the World Cup by 2050. It seems that football in China follows the po-

litical and economic purpose of the state, since it is a mean to develop

the sports industry and a strategic element of Chinese public diplomacy2

, being part of the Belt and Road Initiative in order to promote exchange

of knowledge and strengthen the Chinese leadership globally (LEITE JU-

NIOR; RODRIGUES, 2020, p. 77-79).

We can understand the political motivation of China considering

that football is a great cultural institution that ‘shapes and cements na-

tional identities throughout the world’ (GIULIANOTTI, 1999, p. 23), and

that ‘more than being merely reective of nationalism or place-based

identities, sports and stadiums are themselves drawn upon to construct

ideas about place and nation’ (SHOBE, 2008, p. 329).

2. According to Gregory (2011), public

diplomacy is ‘an instrument used by

states, associations of states, and

some sub-state and non-state actors

to understand cultures, attitudes

and behaviour; to build and manage

relationships; and to inﬂuence thoughts

and mobilise actions to advance their

interests and values’ (p. 343).

Carlos Pulleiro Méndez Relações Internacionais e futebol: limites e possibilidades para que China

se converta em uma potência global de futebol em 2050

However, for Jedlicka (2017) there is still a need to develop a sys-

tematic, progressive approach to sport from International Relations (IR),

using concepts and theoretical perspectives from this discipline to under-

stand better the place of sport in the international political and economic

system. In this sense, IR theory involves several research programmes

–realism, constructivism, liberalism, etc.-, that conceive international is-

sues from radically dierent viewpoints. Following a realist perspective

of IR, one of the dominant schools of thought of this discipline, the state

is conceived as the main actor in international politics under an anar-

chic international system. As a result, states compete primarily for power

and security, implying that international regimes and institutions are just

means for achieving individual state goals.

From this perspective, governments conceive sports competitions

as a way to project their international status, making visible their polit-

ical and economic achievements to a global public or as a scenario for

high-level diplomacy (GRIX; BRANNAGAN, 2016; GRIX et al., 2015).

These political goals contribute to develop a sporting arms race or a sur-

rogate war (DE BOSSCHER et al., 2015; D’AGATI, 2018) between coun-

tries to win more titles and medals than their rivals.

However, to succeed we need to understand rst that football com-

petitiveness ‘is conditioned by the world system and reproduces its dy-

namics’ (MORALES RUVALCABA; ZHANG, 2018, p. 27). In the end, the

state location at the international system tells us not only the resources

that these countries have, but also their dierent approaches and inter-

ests on sport (PULLEIRO, 2020, p. 5-8). Moreover, the conversion of foot-

ball’s resources into titles is not the same for every country. For example,

the English Premier League is considered the best national league of the

world, but England does not reach a nal of the FIFA World Cup or UEFA

European Championship (also called UEFA Euro) since 1966; and along

this decade, Manchester City and PSG have failed in their attempt to win

the Champions League even with an investment of more than a billion of

euros in transfer fees.

Accordingly, the goal of this paper is to understand the state be-

haviour in football from IR theory, in order to know the limits and

possibilities for China to become a global football power by 2050. The

starting point are three premises adapted from the neoclassical realist

theory of IR, considering that both in international politics and sport

the State is conceived as a central actor, and unlike neorealism, where

the international power structure is the main element to determine

the state behaviour (WALTZ, 1979); neoclassical realism explains ‘for-

eign policy decisions and particular historical events by supplement-

ing “third image” insights about international structure and its con-

sequences with rst and second-image variables’ (SCHWELLER, 2014,

p. 7). Consequently, the three premises are: 1. The national interest of

every country in sport is winning titles. 2. The national interest is not as

relevant as the state’s ability and capacity to win. 3. More resources and

investments may guarantee a better performance, but not necessarily

winning titles. Consequently, the working hypothesis for the analysis

of football would be the following:

estudos internacionais • Belo Horizonte, ISSN 2317-773X, v. 9, n. 4, (dez. 2021), p. 7-24

Premise 1 Premise 2 Premise 3

Political will + Financial, human and material resources + Good extractive capacity = ↑ Performance ≠ Winning Titles

Materials and method

Table 1 shows the theoretical-methodological approach to the anal-

ysis of football. The development and performance of Chinese football

is compared with the so-called big-5: England, Spain, Germany, Italy and

France; since these European countries are the main reference of inter-

national football at human –nº of players, coaches, clubs, teams and ref-

erees-, material –stadiums and training facilities-, nancial –revenues,

wages and transfer fees among clubs and leagues- and prestige resources

–international titles and rankings-.

TABLE 1 – Theoretical-methodological approach to football from International Rela-

tions

IR approach to football Chinese football analysis Materials

1º Premise

Sports statehood:

The State is the main political actor in

sport due to national representation in

sports competitions.

National interest = winning international

titles.

Chinese national interest in sport and the

role of football:

One-China policy.

The Olympic Dream and Juguo tizhi.

Xi Jinping’s three wishes for Chinese

football. Literature review.

Chinese policy documents.

Data obtained from reports and websites

of:

Football federations and professional

leagues.

Deloitte, IFFHS, CIES Football Observatory,

EU SME Centre, Forbes, Transfermarkt.

2º Premise

Sports competitiveness determined by:

Distribution of power at international level.

National sports policy.

Extractive capacity.

Financial, human and material resources of

Chinese football.

Football governance model with Chinese

characteristics.

Collaboration agreements with foreign

football powers.

3º Premise

Better performance ≠ winning titles:

Continental organisation of international

football.

Limits to the conversion of potential power

into real power.

Unpredictability of winning.

Performance of Chinese clubs, CSL and

Chinese national teams in:

AFC and FIFA competitions.

IFFHS and FIFA rankings.

Note: Own elaboration table

Apart from the literature review, with more than 50 journal arti-

cles, books and book chapters collected about the Chinese football devel-

opment, we have reviewed policy documents of Chinese football, high-

lighting especially two of the four comprehensive reform programmes

released between 2014 and 2016: the Overall Chinese Football Reform

and Development Programme of 2015; and the 2016 Medium and Long-

Term Development Plan of Chinese Football (2016-2050) –hereafter, Na-

tional Football Plan-.

In terms of data, we have collected the latest information available

about the number players, coaches, clubs, teams, football pitches and ref-

erees, from ocial reports and websites of football federations and pro-

fessional leagues. This is complemented with several reports covering the

socio-economic aspects of international football –migration, attendance

to stadiums, audiences, total revenues of leagues, etc.-, made by Deloitte,

Carlos Pulleiro Méndez Relações Internacionais e futebol: limites e possibilidades para que China

se converta em uma potência global de futebol em 2050

International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS), CIES

Football Observatory, Forbes, or Transfermarkt.

In terms of structure, this article has two main sections. The rst

one develops the theoretical-methodological approach to football from

IR, explaining how the international system and its dynamics congure

and helps to explain the state behaviour in football. The second section

studies the current situation of Chinese football and the diculties ob-

served to become a global football power by 2050, following the theoreti-

cal-methodological approach developed in the previous section.

International Relations and football: The state behaviour in sport from a

realist perspective of IR

Premise 1: The national interest of every country in sport is winning titles

The most basic and fundamental connection between football and

IR is the statehood of the international sports system, meaning that In-

ternational Federations (IFs) and the International Olympic Committee

(IOC) dene the concept of country or nation since the 90s as a State that

has an already accepted international recognition. This does not mean

that international organisations like European Union (EU), United Na-

tions (UN) or NGOs have their own sports agenda (MURRAY, 2018), but

as the state is the only one with direct representation in the sports system

through their National Federations (NFs) and National Olympic Com-

mittees (NOCs), it is conceived as the main political actor from an IR

perspective (PULLEIRO, 2020, p. 4-5).

Therefore, trying to delimit the national interest in sport, under-

stood here as an analytical tool to explain the state behaviour, the sport-

ing values and Olympism stress that winning is not as important as tak-

ing part in the competition and ghting well. However, since sports com-

petitions are zero-sum games and national symbolism is present through

ags, anthems or national crests, the international prestige, status and

competitiveness of countries is at stake (PULLEIRO, 2020, p. 5-8). In sim-

ple terms, winning in football and sport in general matters for the de-

velopment and strengthen of national identity, for the promotion of con-

cepts like solidarity or hard work among society and to the maintenance

of governmental legitimacy and status at national and international level

(HOULIHAN, 1991; RIORDAN, 1993).

Consequently, every country –from fans and players to clubs, feder-

ations and governments- wants to win at any cost, and although winning

was important since practically the beginning of the international sports

institutionalisation, this political vision of sport became the most relevant

element during the Cold War. In the end, winning sports competitions

under the bipolar order implied a display of superiority for the respective

capitalist or communist bloc. Therefore, the traditional conception of

sport as something that was exclusively part of the private sphere, reject-

ing public funding and state intervention, was progressively abandoned

(GREEN; OAKLEY, 2001).

estudos internacionais • Belo Horizonte, ISSN 2317-773X, v. 9, n. 4, (dez. 2021), p. 7-24

Since then, sports statehood, winning titles and national pride are

so intertwined that for so many people winning in sport means either

local or national success (SHOBE, 2008, p. 331). The players also realise

the duty of responsibility that they have with their local communities

and their countries as ‘people expect you to win, and this hurts more than

the physical punishment’ (UNDERWOOD, 1964). Accordingly, the iden-

tication of players as representatives of their countries ghting for the

sporting glory, increases the public interest, being a key element of the

Tv sport system by which the sports organisations, television channels,

advertising companies and consumers enjoy from a benecial business

relationship (LOBMEYER; WEIDINGER, 1992, p. 313).

Besides, for Kissoudi ‘history shows that governments have used

international sports events, especially the Olympic Games, to pursue

their own interests rather than understanding, friendship, and peace’

(2008, p. 1692); which would explain the political motivation of the sport-

ing arms race, even when the logic of public investments in elite sport has

been questioned by several studies along the last decade (GRIX; CARMI-

CHAEL, 2012; DE RYCKE; DE BOSSCHER, 2019).

Premise 2: The national interest is not as relevant as the state’s ability

and capacity to win

Daniel Morales and Alberto Rocha highlight a key element of the

state behaviour in international politics and in sport, explaining that

not only the national interest matters, since the ability of states to de-

fend their interests at any given moment is also relevant (2010, p. 254).

In other words, state power determines the limits and possibilities of a

given policy.

According to the Mexican scholars, power in IR is a three-dimen-

sional phenomenon, distinguishing among material, semi-material and

immaterial capacities, which feed one another; a dynamic phenomenon,

as states’ power is not static; and relative, as it depends on other states’

power (ROCHA; MORALES RUVALCABA, 2018).

In this regard, the hierarchy of the international system is deter-

mined by a state relation in terms of centre-periphery, with core-like pro-

duction processes and peripheral production processes (WALLERSTEIN,

2004). The G7 –United States, Germany, Japan, France, United Kingdom,

Italy and Canada- are the great powers3 that conforms a directory of the

international governance, since they have enough power to act autono-

mously, impose their policies on other countries and lead the global econ-

omy (MORALES RUVALCABA, 2019, p. 144-145).

On the other hand, the semi-peripheral states, conformed by re-

gional powers4, secondary regional states and subregional powers, would

be an intermediate category, being inuenced and determined by core

and peripheral processes. Their state apparatus is in a process of moderni-

sation, but they still contain deeply discordant forces and social dynamics

because their economies are still in a process of industrialisation, with

high socio-economic inequality and strong disparity in their internal re-

gions (MORALES RUVALCABA, 2020).

3. In addition to the great powers, core

states include also the category of

middle powers and semi-core states

(MORALES RUVALCABA, 2019).

4. According to Morales (2020), China,

India, Russia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia,

Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia, Poland,

Argentina and South Africa belong to

this state category.

Carlos Pulleiro Méndez Relações Internacionais e futebol: limites e possibilidades para que China

se converta em uma potência global de futebol em 2050

However, to understand in a comprehensive manner the foreign

policy of countries we need to introduce in the analysis cognitive and

domestic variables: the ruling elite’s perceptions of systemic pressures or

threats, and bureaucratic structures or dierent types of governments

and governance (ROSE, 1998), because ‘complex domestic political pro-

cesses act as transmission belts that channel, mediate, and (re)direct pol-

icy outputs in response to external forces’ (SCHWELLER, 2004, p. 164).

Accordingly, since sport becomes one of the means to realise the

foreign policy of states (MURRAY, 2012, p. 581), ‘the distribution of power

and international hierarchy are conditioning factors to the governments,

who will decide the behaviour and goals of countries in both internation-

al politics and sports competitions’ (PULLEIRO, 2020, p. 7), which basi-

cally means that countries are not just automatons that react similarly

to the same systemic pressures, as can be seen in the case of small states.

In the end, material and semi-material capacities –population, in-

frastructures, territory and natural resources, healthcare and education

systems, etc.- would be the basis on which countries develop their sport-

ing competitiveness in order to win titles that would guarantee prestige,

fame, status and leadership –immaterial capacities-. However, the ex-

tractive capacity, namely, how the NFs, leagues and clubs manage and

organise the sports resources, would explain how countries with similar

number of players, managers, stadiums or investments may not be equal-

ly competitive (PULLEIRO, 2020, p. 6-7).

Applied to football, a good extractive capacity helps us to under-

stand how a country like Iceland can reach the quarter-nals of the 2016

UEFA Euro and the group stage of the 2018 FIFA World Cup with only

179 full size pitches in the country, 115 aliated clubs and 18.500 regis-

tered male players; and on the other hand, how Netherlands could not

entered the group stage of those competitions having more than 75 stadi-

ums with capacity for at least 3,000 people, more than 3,300 clubs, 1 mil-

lion of registered male players and the revenues of the Eredivisie reaching

almost €500 million (KSI, 2018; BARNARD et al., 2019).

Premise 3: More resources and investments guarantee a better perfor-

mance, but not necessarily winning titles

As we mentioned before, power in sport and IR is relational since

the gains of some countries means the losses of others. This means that

due to the number of matches and competitions, the sporting authorities

of each country can monitor and evaluate the performance of their teams

and clubs, meaning that a country can reverse a downward trend if it

has the appropriate resources, a good extractive capacity and the political

will to do it. In other words, the competitiveness, technication and de-

termination to win is such that changing the status quo of a consolidated

sport is not an easy task.

Here we need to consider rst the continental organisation of foot-

ball. Except for FIFA tournaments, which are a minority, for clubs and

national teams international football happens mainly among the tourna-

ments organised by continental confederations: UEFA (Europe), CONME-

estudos internacionais • Belo Horizonte, ISSN 2317-773X, v. 9, n. 4, (dez. 2021), p. 7-24

BOL (South America), CONCACAF (North America), CAF (Africa), AFC

(Asia) and OFC (Oceania). This means that externally, the competitiveness

of a country is conditioned and limited mainly by its most immediate op-

ponents, making very stable the international power structure of football.

In this sense, acknowledging that since its origins, this sport has

been a matter of European and South American countries; if we trace a

centre-periphery logic in football, in the last decades, its centre of power

has displaced to a few Western European countries, instead of includ-

ing more contenders from other continents. The dierent rankings and

reports about national teams or the economic and competitive perfor-

mance of players, clubs and national leagues, reveal that UEFA coun-

tries, especially the big-5, have the best and most successful players, clubs

and national teams of the world (BARNARD et al., 2019; IFFHS, 2020;

TRANSFERMARKT, 2020; FIFA, 2020; OZANIAN, 2019).

The 71% –10 out of 14 countries- of the FIFA World Cup semi-nal-

ists in the XXI century are from Europe; with Brazil and Argentina being

nalists only once, in 2002 and 2014 respectively, being Brazil the only

non-European country that became champion.

In terms of clubs, the same process is happening. Historically, Eu-

rope and South America are not so far if we consider the Intercontinental

Cup and FIFA Club World Cup since 1960: 33 titles won by European clubs

(56%) and 26 by South Americans (44%). Nevertheless, in the XXI century 8

out of 12 clubs (66%) that have become world champions are from Europe.

Therefore, Western European domestic competitions are the most

prestigious ones, as it happens with the UEFA Champions League at in-

ternational level. Accordingly, although South American players are still

considered among the best, since they play mostly for European clubs,

especially after the Bosman ruling of 1995 (RAVENEL et al., 2017; CIES

FOOTBALL OBSERVATORY, 2020); South American domestic and in-

ternational tournaments like Copa Libertadores can no longer be com-

pared to the competitiveness and economic impact of European ones.

However, a unique characteristic of sport is that we cannot antic-

ipate a result until the match or the competition is nished. We already

mentioned the cases of England, PSG and Manchester City; and in ad-

dition, we have Maracanazo, Centenariazo, Greece winning the UEFA

Euro 2004 or Leicester FC becoming the champion of the 2015/16 Pre-

mier League, that are good examples of underdogs winning against all

odds. Accordingly, we should consider the unpredictability of winning

in football, no matter if we refer to long seasons or short tournaments,

national teams or clubs.

In summary, the conversion of the potential power into real power

in football is not the same for every country, which might lead to a para-

dox of power, explained generally in IR with the case of the Vietnam War

and how United States was incapable to take advantage of its extraordi-

nary military and economic capacities (SODUPE, 2002, p. 91). Therefore,

the last premise considers that making substantial economic investments

in order to have the best facilities or the biggest pool of talent will increase

the performance of a country; but this does not necessarily mean winning

international tournaments automatically, or even reaching to nals.

Carlos Pulleiro Méndez Relações Internacionais e futebol: limites e possibilidades para que China

se converta em uma potência global de futebol em 2050

Chinese football development: diculties for China to become a global

football power by 2050

Following the three premises of the previous section, the focus of

the analysis for Chinese football is, rstly, on the role of football within

the Chinese sports policy. Secondly, how China is increasing the nan-

cial, material and human resources of football, and is trying to improve

its extractive capacity. Finally, how the Chinese national teams and clubs

have performed internationally along this decade.

The Chinese political will: From the Olympic dream to the three wishes

for Chinese football

In competitive terms, for the CCP winning was important practi-

cally since the beginning, but the development of Chinese sport was ini-

tially determined mainly by China’s confrontation with Chinese Taipei,

and secondly, by its location in the international system. In this regard,

the rejection of the IOC and IFs to follow the One-China policy of Bei-

jing, implied the withdrawal of China from the Olympic Movement and

every IF that recognised the national federations of Chinese Taipei –FIFA

included- in 1958. Only after the correlation of power was favourable to

China in the 70s, Beijing was able to impose its political demands into the

international sports institutions (AUTHOR, 2020, p. 9-10).

Since the 80s, Chinese authorities followed the political logic

of the Cold War, and the Olympics became China’s primary target in

terms of giving back ‘pride, condence and hope to the nation’ (HONG;

ZHOUXIANG, 2012, p. 74-75). Consequently, thanks to the political and

socio-economic development of China and the establishment of Juguo

tizhi, a sports policy characterised by the governmental economic sup-

port to elite sport –especially prioritising Olympic sports- (HONG, 2008,

p. 36-44); in less than two decades China went from being a secondary

sports power, failing to reach the top ten countries in Seoul 88, to rank

rst in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

Accordingly, with China focused on obtaining gold medals instead

of scoring goals, it is not strange that football was underdeveloped in the

background. Nevertheless, this does not mean that there was not any

plan to raise the competitiveness of football. In the 50s, Chinese author-

ities considered that a strong performance in football ‘would announce

to the world that the march to modernity had begun, that Communist

China and its people could match the world in play, as well as power and

prosperity’ (JINXIA; MANGAN, 2001, p. 81). However, the eects of the

Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution implied the disruption

of sports training, a shutdown of sports schools and a deterioration of

sports facilities, which meant severe limitations for the development of

football (JINXIA; MANGAN, 2001, p. 79-83).

After China came back to the AFC in 1974 and FIFA in 1979, the next

two decades displayed a frustration with football throughout the Chinese

society. In a situation where China was improving its sports performance

at practically all levels, the continuous failure of men’s football, incapable

estudos internacionais • Belo Horizonte, ISSN 2317-773X, v. 9, n. 4, (dez. 2021), p. 7-24

of reaching the group stage of the World Cup and the Olympics, implied

national despair, anger, criticism, and sometimes even public disorder, as

it happened after an embarrassing loss against Hong Kong in 1985. Sev-

en years later, it was published the rst of the Ten-Year Plan for China’s

Football (1993-2002) that established unrealistic goals: the national team

should not only had to qualify for all the editions of the World Cup and

the Summer Olympics, but also to reach the quarter-nals of the 2000

Olympic Games and being among the top four teams in the 2002 World

Cup (JINXIA; MANGAN, 2001, p. 88-91; PENG et al., 2019, p. 8-9).

In the XXI century, especially since the Beijing Olympics, sport has

been reinforced as a key element of Chinese public diplomacy, particularly

through the organisation of more sports mega-events. It is a way to show

that China ‘has earned its rightful place among the leading powers as a na-

tion of culture, sport and entertainment’ (MÜLLER; STEYAERT, 2013, p.

141), but ‘old, stereotypical perceptions of a red, antique and communist state

are proving hard to shift’ (MURRAY, 2018, p. 66-67, 115). In this sense, the

balance of the second Ten-Year Plan (2003-2012) made it clear that ‘there was

something wrong with the way football was governed, at all levels’, due to

the corruption, illegal gambling and match-xing (PENG et al., 2019, p. 9-11).

Besides, the constant failure of Chinese football to deliver results in

line with other sports and with the new international status of the coun-

try is inacceptable for Chinese authorities, and especially for Xi Jinping,

who explained that the resolution of China after the success of the Beijing

Olympics was to improve also the level of football. In 2011, Xi Jinping ex-

pressed for the rst time his three wishes for Chinese football: to qualify,

host and win the FIFA World Cup, which would lead in 2013 to announce

the new football development strategy for the next decades, implemented

through four comprehensive reform programmes released between 2014

and 2016 (GÜNDOĞAN; SONNTAG, 2018; SULLIVAN et al., 2019).

The guidance and leadership of Xi Jinping and the CCP in this pol-

icy renewal is very clear when it is stated at the beginning of the Overall

Chinese Football Reform plan of 2015 that ‘comrade Xi Jinping […] has

placed the rejuvenation of football as an important task for the develop-

ment of sports and the construction of a powerful sports nation on the

agenda’ (STATE COUNCIL OF THE PRC, 2015), being the rst time that

football was at the core of the sports policy in China.

The National Football Plan is less ambitious in the short-term (2016-

2020) than previous plans, since its main goal is strengthened grassroots

football and building the foundation of Chinese football. The medium-term

goal (2021–2030) is to become one of the world’s powerful football nations,

ranking the men’s national football team among the top teams in Asia and

women’s national team among the top teams in the world. Finally, the Long-

term goal (2031–2050) aims to achieve a comprehensive development of Chi-

nese football, and therefore, being one of the world’s leading football powers

(NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND REFORM COMMISSION, 2016).

In conclusion, on a rst level of analysis, we have seen how China

has always had a political motivation to win in football, but this sport

was not the main priority of Chinese sports policy until the arrival of Xi

Jinping to the presidency.

Carlos Pulleiro Méndez Relações Internacionais e futebol: limites e possibilidades para que China

se converta em uma potência global de futebol em 2050

The development of Chinese football: Investments, resources and knowl-

edge to improve the extractive capacity

As it is stated in the second premise, not only the national interest

matters, since the ability of states to defend their interests at any given

moment is also relevant. In a broad sense, as a regional power China

belongs to the high semi-periphery, hoping to rise its status ‘as a pro-

ducer, as an accumulator of capital, and as a military force’ (MORALES

RUVALCABA, 2020, p. 32-36; WALLERSTEIN, 2004, p. 56-57); but at the

same time, as we mentioned before, China wants to prove that is one of

the leading nations in terms of culture, sport and entertainment. That

is why, in the context of football, the basis of the Chinese strategy is to

‘to meet the new expectations of the people, to improve the image of

Chinese sports and to realise the dream of becoming a powerful sports

nation’ (STATE COUNCIL OF THE PRC, 2015). Consequently, once that

football is at the core of the sports policy, with specic goals at short, me-

dium and long-term driving the development of football in the country,

it seems that to succeed, China just needs to improve the quantity and

quality of its football through a better extractive capacity.

In this sense, previous football plans failed miserably since they

lacked clarity, it emerged a tension between political, sporting and com-

mercial interests among stakeholders; there was a lack of success at grass-

roots, elite and professional levels; and corruption, illegal gambling and

match-xing persisted along time (JINXIA; MANGAN, 2001, p. 88-91;

PENG et al., 2019, p. 9-11). Therefore, the challenge still is to integrate

the advantages of Juguo tizhi with the market economy, ‘the ght against

corruption and expand the government regulation across the sport sector

through institutional reform’ (PENG et al., 2019, p. 11-13; HU; HENRY,

2017; CHEN; ZHENG, 2016).

On this point, the Reform Plan of 2015 constrained the governmen-

tal control since the CFA was decoupled from the General Administra-

tion of Sport of China (GAISC), the governmental body that predomi-

nantly manage the elite sport in the country (PENG et al., 2019, p. 11-12;

HU; HENRY, 2017, p. 2-4). In 2017, twelve more policy documents were

published. In two of them, the Ministry of Education (MOE) focused on

youth and campus football, while the CFA focused on improve the man-

agement of the CSL (YU et al., 2019, p. 718-719). However, the complexity

for the mobilisation and deployment of this institutional reform is signi-

cant, since it involves the action and collaboration of more than 30 public

institutions from all administrative levels (SULLIVAN et al., 2019, p. 8).

On the other hand, the determination to have a football governance

model ‘with Chinese characteristics’ (GÜNDOĞAN; SONNTAG, 2018, p.

109-11) can be seen in the connection between grassroots and professional

football. Alternatively, in China, the project of cultivating young football

talents has been traditionally attached to the school education (EU SME

CENTRE, 2019, p. 12-16). A situation that is going to be reinforced under

the era of reforms of Xi Jinping, considering that school football has a signif-

icant role in the consumption of sports products. In 2013, the investment in

school football increased from 40 million to 56 million Yuan per year, and

estudos internacionais • Belo Horizonte, ISSN 2317-773X, v. 9, n. 4, (dez. 2021), p. 7-24

the Reform Plan of 2015 highlighted the educational function of football and

the necessity to popularise it in educative centres in order to accelerate the

co-progress of football skills, to build a strong foundation of young football

talents and to expand the number of professional football teachers (LI, 2018).

In this regard, in 2019 there was 27 million of students that attended

football classes and participated in football training and competitions in

27,000 schools. Besides, ‘40,000 football elds have been built or renovated

in the past ve years with 20,000 more to follow by the end of the 13th

Five-Year Plan (2016-2020)’ (XINHUANET, 2019a; ZHANG, 2020, p. 15).

Accordingly, Chinese football development is being successful according

to the short-term goals of the 2016 National Football Plan. For the medi-

um-term goals, the idea is to have 1 pitch x 10,000 people, having a more

dynamic management of football at all levels –social, campus and profes-

sional football- and becoming football into an important engine of the

sports industry (NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND REFORM COM-

MISSION, 2016). For this ambitious development, the national funding

for the period 2016-2018 was about 680 million Yuan, while provincial and

district funding reached to over 20 billion Yuan (DELOITTE, 2019, p. 9).

Actually, in a few years, we can see already some progress, leaving

behind the idea of a weak development of Chinese football in comparison

with the European big-5 in several fundamental aspects –Table 2-.

TABLE 2 – Comparison of number of players, coaches, clubs, teams and referees

between China and the big-5

GERMANY FRANCE ENGLAND ITALY SPAIN CHINA

Players 7,131,936

(2019)

1,933,680

(2020)

1,836,072

(2015)

1,057,690

(2019)

844,284

(2019) 1,000,000 (2020)

Coaches 60,498

(2016)

35,723

(2020)

90,103

(2016)

26,662

(2019)

26,061

(2019)

70,000

(2019)

Clubs 24,544

(2019)

15,000

(2020)

13,000

(2015)

12,449

(2019)

9,579

(2019) -

Teams 149,735

(2019) -119,000

(2015)

66,492

(2019)

61,716

(2019)

21,736

(2019)

Referees 57,420

(2019)

21,672

(2020)

25,988

(2015)

31,812

(2019)

15,000

(2017)

30,000

(2020)

Note: Own elaboration table. Data obtained from different reports published in the

respective webpages of UEFA and football federations of China, England, Spain,

Germany, France and Italy.

Despite these growing gures, China still needs more of everything

considering the ambitious planning for this decade. The president of the

CFA explained that for 2025 China would need more than 100,000 coach-

es, as it is planned to have 50,000 specialised football schools for that year

(SHIYAO, 2019). Consequently, technication is increasingly important,

and currently, many collaboration agreements are signed annually with

foreign countries to raise the skill level of Chinese players, coaches, refer-

ees, administrators, etc. (TAN et al., 2016, p. 1454; ZHANG, 2020, p. 15-16).

On the past, these agreements would just serve the interests of

foreign powers in terms of promoting their leagues, clubs, players and

associated brands in China through the selling of broadcasting rights or

Carlos Pulleiro Méndez Relações Internacionais e futebol: limites e possibilidades para que China

se converta em uma potência global de futebol em 2050

summer tours. However, as it happens in other economic areas, modern

China can decide what are the needs and priorities of its football in order

to improve it. In this regard, we need to highlight how the Chinese gov-

ernment is involved in the process, becoming football part of the Chinese

diplomacy in bilateral meetings with other Heads of State, creating an

ideal climate to endorse agreements between chinese and foreign foot-

ball stakeholders (LEITE JUNIOR; RODRIGUES, 2020, p. 73-77).

Accordingly, these international agreements not only function to

develop the grassroots and the commercial activity of Chinese football,

but also to improve its managerial and logistical knowledge, covering all

the key stakeholders of Chinese football: MOE, CFA, CSL, professional

clubs and football schools. Therefore, China is learning from the best

football powers in key areas – only with the big-5 there are more than 30

collaboration agreements signed with football federations, professional

leagues and clubs-, to become in the best Asian country in a near future,

and to break the structural hegemony of Europe in the long-term.

External limitations to the performance of Chinese football: The

continentalization of football

Considering the political motivation, investments, resources and

the policy changes for the development of football in China, we can ex-

pect that the performance of the country at the international stage will

be better, following the goals established in the National Football Plan.

About the possibility of becoming one of the best Asian countries

by 2030, according to the IFFHS5, in this decade the CSL is having a re-

markable progress, being ranked among the Asian top four since 2016

–Table 3- (IFFHS, 2020) thanks undoubtedly to the international perfor-

mance of Chinese clubs. Since 2015, at least 50% of Chinese clubs reach

the round of sixteen; and since 2017, it is usual to watch Shanghai SIPG

or Guangzhou Evergrande –the only Chinese club that won this compe-

tition in 2013 and 2015- among the semi-nalists.

TABLE 3 – CSL ranking among the best national leagues according to the IFFHS6

(2010-2019)

Top 1 Asian Top 1 China

League Points League Rank Points Rank (in Asia) Points

2010

Spain

1092 Japan 27º 516 84º (17º) 248

2011 1194

South Korea

18º 589 66º (8º) 298

2012 1283 15º 653 70º (10º) 289

2013 1155 23º 571,5 34º (4º) 430

2014 1259 24º 562,5 56º (6º) 340,5

2015 1262 22º 584,5 ≥ 41º (≥ 4º) -

2016 1277 18º 618,5 36º (3º) 411,5

2017 1155 28º 528,5 38º (4º) 403

2018 1256 19º 580 44º (3º) 400

2019 England 1287 30º 520,5 39º (4º) 428,5

Note: Own elaboration table

5. Since 2010, in the club world ranking

of the IFFHS there are between 62 and 72

UEFA clubs among the top 100, while the

AFC only has had between 2 and 7 clubs.

6. The IFFHS establish 4 levels to qualify

the national leagues, with different points

by match. Each year the ranking decides

the level of each league for the next year.

Currently, South Korea is the only Asian

national league that belongs to level 3.

National leagues of China, Japan, Saudi

Arabia and Iran belong to level 2.

estudos internacionais • Belo Horizonte, ISSN 2317-773X, v. 9, n. 4, (dez. 2021), p. 7-24

In this regard, the football market in China is composed at least of

300 million people. However, in terms of the total revenue –€200 million

(¥1,593 billion)-, the CSL is still far behind in comparison with the €5,440

billion of the Premier League, the €3,168 billion of the Bundesliga or the

€3,073 billion of LaLiga (EU SME CENTRE, 2019, p. 2; BARNARD et

al., 2019, p. 9). Actually, it is not easy to nd a balance between the com-

mercial and political interest of the CSL, because in the end, the CCP

understands the CSL as a mean to serve the Chinese national team by

producing and developing local talent. Consequently, the promotion and

the economic performance of the league and its clubs relying on foreign

stars, has a secondary role (CHEN; ZHENG, 2016).

In fact, even though the quality of foreign talent in the league has

increased7, one of the limitations of the CSL still is that even oering

high salaries, the CSL and Asian football in general only get the best for-

eign players and coaches once that their facing a decline of their careers,

or directly, just before retirement. This is the case of coaches like Lippi,

Benitez or Pellegrini; and players like Fellaini, Hulk, Oscar or Tevez.

In this regard, Chinese authorities realised in 2016 the irrational and

extravagant expenditures on foreign players after CSL clubs spent USD 451.3

million on transfer fees, ‘almost 17 times that of 2013, and 344.4 per cent

more than the rest of AFC combined’ (FIFA, 2017). Accordingly, to guaran-

tee the transition of Chinese young players from grassroots to professional

football, and reduce the number of foreigners in the CSL, new regulations

like the adoption of several quota systems or salary caps have been approved

(YU et al., 2019, p. 721-723; CHEN; ZHENG, 2016; DELOITTE, 2019, p. 14).

TABLE 4 – Chinese national team in FIFA Men’s ranking (2010-2019)

Top 1 Asian Top 1 China

Country Points Country Rank Points Rank (in Asia) Points

2010

Spain

1887 Australia 26º 816 87º (6º) 389

2011 1564 Japan 19º 884 71º (5º) 457

2012 1606 22º 840 88º (6º) 410

2013 1507

Iran

33º 720 92º (10º) 376

2014 Germany 1725 51º 580 97º (9º) 336

2015 Belgium 1494 45º 653 84º (8º) 405

2016 Argentina 1634 29º 814 82º (8º) 427

2017 Germany 1602 32º 798 71º (6º) 498

2018 Belgium 1727 29º 1481 76º (7º) 1317

2019 1765 Japan 28º 1503 76º (9º) 1322

Note: Own elaboration table. The FIFA Council approved a new rating model in August

2018 (FIFA, 2020).

About the national team, as we can see in table 4, the progression is

slower. In FIFA men’s ranking, China has never been above 71º position

in this decade, ranked among the top ve Asian teams only in 2011. Ac-

tually, we can observe a stagnation of the Chinese performance in Asian

competitions, since China does not reach a nal since 2004, when it won

the Asian Cup, the AFC U-17 Championship and lost to South Korea at

7. Along this decade, the number of

CSL footballers who have played in the

World Cup has increased. (DELOITTE,

2019, p. 15).

Carlos Pulleiro Méndez Relações Internacionais e futebol: limites e possibilidades para que China

se converta em uma potência global de futebol em 2050

the AFC U-19 Youth Championship nal. In this decade, China never

passed quarternals in any of the AFC tournaments, being eliminated in

the Asian Cup by Australia in 2015, and by Iran in 2019.

Therefore, considering that the success of the national team is what

matters most for Chinese authorities, the main question still is if China will

be one of the football powers that can dispute the nal of a FIFA World Cup

in a few decades. According to the third premise, even if China becomes

the best Asian country by 2030, the issues attached to the continental or-

ganisation of football will be dicult to surpass in order to challenge Eu-

ropean or even South American football competitiveness in the long-term.

In this decade, the top ten of FIFA men’s ranking has been exclu-

sively occupied by European and South American countries, except for

Egypt, ranked 9th in 2010. In addition, no Asian country has managed to

reach the quarternals of a World Cup since South Korea was a semi--

nalist in 2002, where it was the co-host with Japan.

The continentalization of football is not only a problem for China.

Australia realised that to progress in competitive and economic terms

they should be part of the AFC instead of the OFC, something that hap-

pened in 2006 (HALLINAN; HEENAN, 2013). In addition, a SWOT anal-

ysis of the Japanese Football Association’s Medium-term Planning (2015-

2022) realised that a disadvantage for Japan to achieve the goal of being

among the top ten countries in the FIFA ranking by 2015, was precisely

the failure of Asian football (XIE et al., 2018).

In this sense, it seems that there is a problem in the transition from

grassroots to professional football, because Asian youth football has

demonstrated recently that can be relatively competitive. In the 2019 U-20

FIFA World Cup, South Korea lost the nal against Ukraine; Iraq was a

semi-nalist in 2013, and Japan, EAU and Uzbekistan has reached quar-

ternals in dierent editions along the XXI century; in the 2012 Olym-

pics, South Korea won the bronze medal against Japan; and in the U-17

World Cup, China, North and South Korea, Japan, Iran and Uzbekistan

managed to reach quarternals.

But even if China become a catalyst for the development of Asian

football, it is highly improbable that Asian domestic and international

competitions could become a global reference and replace the prestige

of European tournaments in the medium-term; making impossible to

recruit the best global talent in order to raise the level of local football

(CIES FOOTBALL OBSERVATORY, 2020). This might be balanced hav-

ing Chinese footballers playing in the best foreign professional leagues,

but currently, there are only nine Chinese players in professional clubs of

European countries: Serbia, Spain, Portugal, France and Romania (CIES

FOOTBALL OBSERVATORY, 2020). Besides, most of them are not yet

playing in the rst divisions or have a protagonist role in their clubs.

Conclusion

This paper has reviewed from a realist perspective of IR the dicul-

ties for China to become a football power and win the World Cup by 2050.

Based on our analysis, China is following the rst two premises explained

estudos internacionais • Belo Horizonte, ISSN 2317-773X, v. 9, n. 4, (dez. 2021), p. 7-24

in this paper. In the end, it was the lack of acceptable results at international

level what motivated the deep reform process of Chinese football, and it is

the desire of becoming world champion what is driving the development

of the football industry, interfering even with the management of the CSL.

About the Chinese ability and capacity to win, we can highlight

that, for the rst time, football is at the core of the Chinese sports policy,

and that notable progress is being made to strengthen its material and hu-

man capacities. In addition, China is learning from foreign football pow-

ers, trying to optimise its extractive capacity but under a football gover-

nance model with Chinese characteristics, needing to wait a few more

years to evaluate properly the eectiveness of this governance model.

Accordingly, acknowledging China’s tremendous eorts to put its

internal development factors to the same level as European football pow-

ers, the main limitation to become a major contender at the FIFA World

Cup in the long-term relies on external competitiveness. Considering the

European hegemony at all levels in a context of continentalization of in-

ternational football, it will be dicult to raise the level of Asian football.

There are huge limitations to make AFC’s tournaments as prestigious

and competitive as the European ones at short and medium-term. Con-

sequently, even if China becomes the best Asian country after 2030, this

does not guarantee that China will be competitive enough to beat the

best European and South American national teams and clubs.

In this regard, we think that the globalisation trend in football with the

promotion of new tournaments like the FIFA Club World Cup, which will be

organised in its expanded format in China, will be positive to raise the com-

petitiveness of Chinese and Asian football. On this point, the COVID-19 pan-

demic might become a window of opportunity to reform the management

of international football, which would benet China. Specically, FIFA Pres-

ident, Gianni Infantino, suggested in March, after the COVID-19 outbreak, a

reform of world football with dierent formats (BURTON, 2020), where he

expressed his desire of having at least 50 clubs and national teams that could

win the World Cup, not just eight from Europe and two from South America.

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