Mad Brit Diary

Trickle of Chinese players to Europe could become a flood.

(Saturday, March 22, 2003) -- It's just a trickle now, but it could become a flood.

The Mad Brit predicts that in the near future, Chinese soccer players will begin moving to European teams in greater numbers. It's a good bet that down the road, if a team has to decide between signing a Chinese, or a non-European Union player, of equal talent, the club will likely opt for the Far Eastern dude, because of economic factor.

With a talented Chinese player on the roster, the cash registers will sing. After the success of Chinese star Li Tie at Everton in England's Premier League, the club earned a big sponsorship deal with Chinese telephone company Kejian. The mobile phone giant is now promoted on the team shirt and will sponsor Everton's tour of China this summer.

Amidst China's 1.3 billion people, there is a massive interest in the Premier League. On January 1, when Everton played Manchester City, which includes Chinese international midfielder Sun Jihai, an estimated whopping 360 million viewers stayed up late to watch the 2-2 tie on live TV.

"Sun and Li are the two best Chinese players in the world," Manchester City coach Kevin Keegan told a British paper.

In Beijing, an Everton game with Li Tie playing, draws 13 percent of the television audience. "The level of soccer in China isn't that high," said a Kejian PR man . "So if young people want to develop their skills, they often have to go outside. Our business had a chance to send these two players abroad to develop their skills."

As the nation shakes of the economic shackles of socialism, and the rising middle class seeks leisure time at sporting events, soccer will continue to expand in China. Two years ago, the Chinese soccer bosses issued its famous "White Paper on China Football," introducing an ambitious five -year plan to build China into a soccer power. And the Asians are not afraid to spend money to promote the game.

Last month, World Cup champion Brazil, with a top-heavy star roster, was lured by a $1.25 million payoff to play China's national team. While the Brazilians hardly broke a sweat in the scoreless tie, the game sent a message to other nations: China wants to play the world and is willing to pay good cash for it too.

The China's national team is now under Dutch coach Arie Haan, a former Ajax star and two-time World Cup finalist in 1974 and 1978. Still the country has a long way to go. Chinese players are reported to earn just $19 a day while on national-team duty.

China qualified for the World Cup for the first time last year under former United States coach Bora Milutinovic. The team lost all three games and failed to score a goal in games against Brazil, Turkey and Costa Rica in South Korea.

After the finals, Chinese players were encouraged to, "Go west." At the club level, Chinese teams are improving and giving Japanese and South Korean clubs a run for their money. Chinese champ Dalian Shide is through to the semifinals of the Asian Football Confederation's Champions League after defeating South Korean titlist Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma before 25,000 at Dalian recently. The winner of the event, played in May, will earn $3 million.

The Asian soccer market is enormous and clubs in Europe are fighting for a share of it. England's Manchester United already has thousands of fans in Thailand and Singapore and is wooing followers in China. Other Chinese stars now in Europe are Fan Zhiyi at Dundee, and Yang Chen (Frankfurt) and Xie Hui (Achen) who play in Germany's second division.

It was not a great week for English clubs. Newcastle United, Arsenal and Liverpool were all knocked out of European competition. Manchester United remains the lone club in European games. The Mad Brit is overdosing on Tetley Tea's British Blend as he deals with the reality of not seeing Liverpool's Michael Owen in the UEFA Cup semifinals.

It's enough to turn the Mad Brit off his fish and chips, but all credit to Celtic for playing a great game and winning on two brilliant goals, especially Welshmen John Hartson's strike to kill off Liverpool 2-0.

Going into the Champions League last eight are three Spanish teams, three Italian clubs, one Dutch club and Manchester United, proving that the Brits still have much to learn from the Italian and Spanish game. Or do they?

Juventus squeezed into the semis with just seven points in its group and Ajax earned just eight points. Still Newcastle and Arsenal played some attractive soccer and can't be accused of the long-ball game. And where are the Germans in all this? Dortmund must feel bad, after not going through on 10 points.

Now, Manchester United has the toughest test of all in the quarterfinals against mighty Real Madrid. In other games, we have some juicy lineups, as Inter Milan faces Valencia, Ajax Amsterdam takes on A.C. Milan and Juventus fights it out with Barcelona.

Bulweel14 writes concerning the article on caps: "Yes mate, just one more thing to add about the caps. These Yanks that have more caps than anyone, think about it. Could you imagine how many caps the great Peter Shilton would have if there was no organized soccer and all you had to do was schedule crap matches or garbage friendlies against the same teams. . .?"

Heard a rumor, have a gripe or a tip? Feeling lonely? E-mail the Mad Brit at themadbrit3@aol.com.