Xi Jinping has always been a strong proponent of the value of sport, and under his leadership the Chinese state has set itself bold targets in this area – to get 435 million people regularly exercising by 2020, to turn its major sports into regional powers by 2030 and world-class competitors by 2050, and to build a ¥5tn (€641m/$699m) sports industry by 2025.
But progress has been bumpy. Digital sports broadcasting has grown but not without overheating in 2017-18. External investment in club football was everywhere, and then it was reined in. China bid successfully for the 2022 Winter Olympics and the 2021 Club World Cup, but its volleyball and soccer teams have failed to qualify for Tokyo 2020 (basketball is likely to follow).
Gou Zhongwen, the director of the General Administration of Sport, said during a meeting of sport federation chiefs in Beijing last month that raising China’s performances in the “big-ball games” is a priority for the country’s central and regional sports authorities. Building a talent pipeline in these sports is a huge challenge that will have to be overcome if China is to become the planned regional powerhouse by the end of this decade.
The trouble is, reforms in domestic leagues and sport federations in recent years, particularly football and basketball, have generally moved things one step forward, two steps back, due to a lack of commercial nous, as well as good old fashioned in-fighting.
When it comes to management of the Chinese Super League, the country’s professional football league, the Chinese Football Association is in two minds over whether to tighten control or relinquish it.
In October last year, the CFA – which currently runs the league through an operating company – decided to hand over control to the clubs, in the hope of encouraging commercial development.
But government chiefs were infuriated by the national team’s loss to Syria in a November World Cup qualifier, and in response to demands that better quality Chinese players come through the ranks of the CSL, the CFA exercised its power to slap a new salary cap on foreign players in the league.
The second big challenge is keeping various arms of the state working in harmony. The recent agreement between the GAS and the State Administration of Radio and Television, to jointly create a platform for events, programmes and content covering summer and winter Olympic sports, has only been launched because of big disagreements between the two bodies going back several years.
State broadcaster CCTV’s award ceremony for Chinese athletes has been on ice for two years because the GAS and the SART couldn’t agree on profit distributions or which side would judge the awards.
Pre-empting division also explains why the GAS this month withdrew regulation papers limiting the commercial activities of Chinese athletes – more fall outs between national federations and their star athletes is a bad look with two Asia Olympics around the corner.
Can the CAG meet President Xi’s targets of China as a regional powerhouse in Asian sport by the end of the decade? Only time will tell, but it’s clear that better sporting results need to come sooner than later for the “big ball games”, otherwise it’ll be tough going getting sponsors and rights-buyers to fuel the next stage of China’s sporting ambitions.