Football 101

This has become January’s leitmotiv: Chinese teams contact and then signs South American or European players, offering them unreal payments. It’s a process that has become a few years ago, when Gilardino and Diamanti and then Lavezzi and Jackson Martinez chose the Chinese experience. 

 In this football market window numbers have got even bigger, as do have the names: Oscar, Witsel (also wanted by Juventus) and most of all Carlitos Tevez, who’s going to earn almost 38 million euros every year. Again, the Chinese football has gone under the spotlight, after many people tried to investigate on the attempt of the Chinese government to persuade the people about football’s appeal. Politico has included the Chinese government among other things which could ruin football in 2017.

Actually, the Chinese project is less invasive than that and it “just” aims to win the World Cup, with a process which starts with the academies. Last summer CTV News was able to enter and photograph the top of the iceberg of Chinese’s project: the biggest soccer academy in the world, the Guangzhou Evergrande's Youth Academy. Twelve square kilometers built in less than 11 months to deliver to 2600 kids the possibility to have their dream, o maybe someone else’s. The gigantic Evergrande’s project is credited to Xu Jiayin, a Chinese tycoon which is investing to allow China to have more than 100 thousand youngsters for the next World Cups. All with a partnership with Real Madrid and the arrival of Spanish coaches.

So, we gathered some pictures to understand the vastness of what we’re talking.