World Cup 2018 Candidates: 2. China
Editor’s note: China. The elephant in the room when it comes to the 2018 World Cup. Knowing he was recently in China, I asked my blogging friend from Gramsci’s Kingdom to give an overview of their bid, in the second of our series on the World Cup 2018 candidates (see part one on the Benelux countries here).
Anybody who’s ever been to China knows that this is not a country that does things by half. That’s why a Chinese bid for the 2018 World Cup, should it materialize, will be need to be taken very seriously.
A Chinese bid will fundamentally be built around the country’s three obvious strengths.
First, China – as every marketer knows – is an enormous market that football’s powers-that-be would like to make more pro-football. Right now, football is not a particularly popular sport in China. Attendances at Chinese Super League matches are often MLS-sized. Basketball (and even ping-pong) get a lot more exposure at a day-to-day level in the country and the NBA at least is making serious hay of this.
But no other sporting event engages the Chinese like the World Cup final – tens of millions of them stay up through the night to watch it. The trick for the sport of football is to convert that enthusiasm for one-off events into a more lasting passion. The experience in USA 94 shows that this can happen – given enough time.
Second, the country already has a lot of very modern stadia which will require little renovation in 2018. The country has hosted two major tournaments in the last four years (the 2004 AFC championships and the 2007 Women’s World Cup) and has a great deal of infrastructure to show for it.
Shanghai’s 80,000 seat stadium is only ten years old; Guangdong’s 80,000 seat stadium is of even more recent vintage. Qingdao, Nanking, Wuhan, Tianjin (right), Chongqing and Dalian all of have stadia that are less than ten years’ old and seat over 55,000. In Beijing, the 66,000-seat Workers Stadium may be nearly sixty years old in 2018, but it had a major facelift in 2004 for the AFC Championships in 2004 and no doubt the newly-built “Birds Nest” Olympic Stadium (below) can be pressed into service as well.
Third – and this is the important one – if there’s one thing the Beijing Olympics has already proved, it is that the Chinese government will do absolutely anything to make sure that large, prestige infrastructure projects go off well. Money? No problem. Labour? No problem. Given the infrastructure worries already dogging the run-ups to 2010 and 2014, the importance of this factor shouldn’t be underestimated. This commitment, as has been seen in the buildup to next year’s Olympics, also raises questions about human rights.
On the flip side, China doesn’t have a stellar football culture as we would understand it. When it comes to professional sports – still a relatively new concept in the People’s Republic – the Chinese are phenomenally fickle. Attendance at top flight games correlates rather sharply with the home side’s league position. The attraction is to the aura of winning rather than to the club itself. This probably won’t affect the World Cup much, but it speaks to the shallowness of the game’s roots in the country.
A more troubling issue for the country is the lack of a substantive World Cup record. Given that the host team gets a free pass to the finals, this is not an academic matter: they have to at least be able to put on a good show, and that’s not guaranteed with the squad they currently have. Indeed, in the postwar era no country has ever been awarded the World Cup without qualifying at least twice for the finals under their own steam – and China is still one short of this modest requirement.
The prevalence of local gambling syndicates will also presumable be a source of concern. Agents of these syndicates have fixed or attempted to fix games as far away as Scandinavia and England and the domestic league is still haunted by a series of refereeing scandals in 2001 known as “Black Whistle” which eroded much of the league’s credibility with fans. Given the country’s addiction to betting – all of it illegal outside of Macao – there would have to be considerable attention paid to the possibilities for outside parties to influence to flow and outcomes of games.
But these issues are comparatively minor compared to the larger geopolitical issues involved in FIFA’s decision for 2018. By then, Europe will have gone without a World Cup for a record 12 years. It may well be that the powers that be will simply decide that the game must return to its heartland. If so, China’s chances are doomed regardless of the quality of its bid.
But if the bidding is in fact open – watch out. As long as the Chinese FA learns to play politics well over the next four years and courts its CAF counterparts properly (perhaps in conjunction with Chinese companies who are making real inroads all across Africa), a potential Chinese bid has to be seen as one of the front runners.
Read more on “football, politics, the world” at the excellent Gramsci’s Kingdom, and let us know what you think about the prospect of China hosting the World Cup in the comments.
Photo credits: (1) sundaweibuaa; (2) alanadair89; (3) spiky24; (4) tao_gz2
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Really interesting stuff, A.G. So many strong reasons for and so many strong reasons against. Is there any sense that their having been awarded the Olympics so recently will work against a Chinese bid, or are these decisions made without reference to other major international sports events? I could even see an argument for the Olympics working in their favor, since it will mean that they’ll have complete set of modern sports infrastructure, recently tested and only eight years old.
I suppose it will depend on how the Olympics turn out. Whilst AG emphasises the Chinese government are willing to put in any resource they can to make a major international event work, if Beijing 2008 does have serious pollution problems that’ll kill the World Cup bid, won’t it?
After all, given China’s growth, it’s hardly likely to be less polluted by 2018.
I dunno about the pollution thing. Nobody ever complains about playing football in Mexico City and it’s on a par with some Chinese cities. If they complain, it’s usually about altitude.
There are interconnections between the big international sports bodies. It has been suggested in various places that the hispanosphere’s support for France 98 was a quid pro quo for la francophonie’s support for Barcelona 92. I would say a recent Olympics helps as long as the two events aren’t *too* close together. 10 years apart for China is about the minimum. 6 years apart for the UK is sheer lunacy – politically it’s just not on and the FA is wasting its time. 2022 or 2026 is a better bet for them.
My point was more that if pollution gets the media’s attention next summer, it’ll hurt the World Cup bid (see this FT article for an example). Even if other cities like Mexico have equally bad air, it’d be terrible PR.
I’m curious as to what determines the appropriate gap between major events, AG? Why is six years lunacy in particular?
I really enjoy these analysies. Keep it up! And I say England for 2018! (Even though they should’ve had it in 2014- Think of it: 1982: Spain. Eight years later, Italy. Eight years later, France. Eight years later, Germany. Eight years later, Brazil? I don’t really like England, but come on! It was meant to be!)
The WC and the Olympics are two very big, very prestigious events and countries like to feel that they are being shared around. The 84 Olympics were one of the reasons the US didn’t get the WC in 86 when Colombia’s rights were yanked. They had to wait until 94 – ten years, in other words.
Also, if you’re going to build your case for hosting a WC in part on your competence gained by having had an olympics, people are going to want to see how well you do at the latter. But that’s a problem because the 2018 WC decision needs to be made in 2011 – too early to know if London 2012 will be a triumph or a fiasco. That’s why I think the subsequent round – 2022 – is a much better bet.
Your Wrote:
Indeed, in the postwar era no country has ever been awarded the World Cup without qualifying at least twice for the finals under their own steam
True, but the USA were awarded WC94 in 1988. At that time they had not qualified since 1950. FIFA were quite relieved when Caligiuri’s goal against T&T put us into Italia 1990 by the skin of our teeth.
Great post. I agree that the fact that my birth nation’s football team is rubbish is one of the biggest obstacles to any potential bid.
I know a lot of Chinese football fans, and all of them spend their time being embarrassed about the performances of the national team. You think supporting England is bad? Try the long-suffering hardcore supporters of the Chinese NT.
(Domestic league football in China did quite well during the 90s, before the allegations of cheating and corruption began to drag it down.)
The parallels to the factors that led FIFA to award the ’94 World Cup to the country of my birth are rather striking.
Relative lack of football history and culture: check.
Highly developed infrastructure: check.
Underperforming national team: check.
Massively attractive market to FIFA’s commercial “partners”: check.
Climatological/environmental challenges: check (remember Orlando at noon in June?).
Challenging television times for the core market in Europe: check.
Perceived opportuntity to establish football in a market where it currently plays second fiddle to “rival” sports: check.
The progress of the Olympics will definitely have an impact, as will the national team’s performance in the 2010 qualifiers (the draw was certainly not friendly to them). So will the reports that FIFA blazers brought back from the Women’s World Cup (did they like the hotels, restaurants and goodie bags? the empty stadia won’t be an issue for the real thing). If the World Club Cup is really going to become a peripatetic circus, look for it to be held in China within the next four years.
And as always with FIFA, don’t forget politics. In particular, don’t understimate the impact of China’s rapidly expanding political economic ties with Africa, which has a very significant number of votes and no obvious reason to support any European candidate for 2018. Interestingly enough, China may be a harder sell in developed Asian countries like Japan and South Korea.
Lest we forget that Austria have been complete balls for many years now (no qualification for anything since WC 98) and they were still awarded Euro 2008. And that’s Austria. China is set to be the economic powerhouse of the next century, I can’t see FIFA and it’s sponsors turning down the billions available because the home team might not do very well.
Interesting analysis as ever, ursus. What’s fascinating (and why we’re running this series now) is that even though the vote isn’t til 2011, the jockeying has very much begun due to the number of candidates, and the desire of FIFA for the contest to be whittled down to one from each continent (or at most two).
That makes the Olympics even more crucial next year, as they will surely be directly compared to Australia’s vastly successful 2000 extravaganza, since that country seems to be the main “Asian” competitor.
Alex, good point. I would hope at least that if Austria embarrass themselves in Euro 2008, it might lead to FIFA/UEFA both rethinking automatically seeding the host nations. And not having that seeding actually might make a graceful first round exit more “acceptable”, even if it would cut the odds of China or whoever actually making it into knockout play. But if that is vastly unlikely anyway, it might not be the worst thing if they lose to top ranked teams from a PR perspective.
I might be wrong here, but in the history of the World Cup, and the “modern” group stage era of the European Championships, no host nation has ever failed to escape the group.
So perhaps it would be a consideration, but football fans are less parochial these days, and the need for the home nation to do well for the tournement to be a success is less of an issue that it has been in the past. Some of us may remember the horrible attendences at non-England games at Euro ’96, for example.
It might also be worth mentioning that it’s now a lot harder to escape the group stage — remember, when the U.S. hosted it, only 24 nations qualified so it was known the U.S. could qualify third in a (not very strong) group of four. Which is exactly what they did.
China would have a tougher ride of it, having to finish in the top two of a group of four.
Given that there are virtually no Chinese playing abroad and that top Super League sides are roughly equal in quality to good MLS teams, I’d say the description “tough ride” is generous.
But on the other hand, how good were the Japanese or South Korean leagues and players when they were awarded the World Cup? It’s amazing what a bit of dedication and home turf can do for a team.
Not to mention assistance from referees.
Maybe as Guus Hiddink is gonna be the coach of the chinese team they will end up in de finals?!
dunno about the pollution thing. Nobody ever complains about playing football in Mexico City and it’s on a par with some Chinese cities. If they complain, it’s usually about altitude.
There are interconnections between the big international sports bodies. It has been suggested in various places that the hispanosphere’s support for France 98 was a quid pro quo for la francophonie’s support for Barcelona 92. I would say a recent Olympics helps as long as the two events aren’t *too* close together. 10 years apart for China is about the minimum. 6 years apart for the UK is sheer lunacy – politically it’s just not on and the FA is wasting its time. 2022 or 2026 is a better bet for them.
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Sorry to put you right, but world cups and Olympics have been held concurrenty. 1968 Olympics, Mexico City, 1970 World cup, Mexico; 1972 Olympics, Munich, 1974 World cup West Germany; 1994 World Cup, USA, 1996 Olympics Atlanta. Even winter Olympics (1992 Albertville , France, 1998 World cup France, 1998 Nagano, Japan) have been held close to World cups (2002 Korea-Japan), so the 2012 Olympics and the 2018 World cup are not too close together to cancel each other out. England can more than cope with staging the World cup now, in fact England were the standby host if anything went wrong for the 2002 World cup,
There is not much I can say regarding Italys match against Spain; other then I saw it in Bar Napoli and in the company of those who had been there for Italys previous match other then the already known fact that we won 2-1. Naturally as with any quarterfinal match, this one was not without its great moments which saw cheers from us; Italys ever faithful tifossi . The first of which coming at the 25 minute mark when a long range effort from Dino Baggio found the back of the Spanish net and put us ahead 1-0, which was also the score that ended the opening half.