You do realise that's how we started becoming the powerhouse of Asia in any case? After the North Korea reached the quarter-finals in the 1966 Olympics, the Korean government set up a specialist club called Yangji FC to provide a professional environment to foster talents, and this helped to ignite the interest in football in Korea. Again, this is exactly what we do for most of the Olympics sports aside from football, volleyball, and basketball. The so-called 'elite sport' scheme is what led to Korea to win so many medals at the Olympics. By investing heavily in non-mainstream sports, we allow our athletes to train professionally when most other athletes couldn't, we reaped medals at the summer and the winter Olympics. If anything, football is something that could start reaping benefit if the project becomes successful.
I won't believe China is getting anywhere unless I see some results on youth or senior national level. Until then we can assume all these plans and speculations are wishful thinking.
These things don't happen overnight after you start investing. Our investment in football started in the late 60s - early 70s and really come into fruition by the 80s. As for Japan, they started investing in mid 90s, and started to reap the reward in the late 00s - early 10s. I'd give China at least a few years before judging their investments in football.
Players like Jackson Martinez, and possibly Alex Teixeira and Yaya Toure have or could move to play in their league soon. You know, the sort of luxury players who demand notoriously high wages. If China keeps this up, their football is going to crash and burn again, just like the post-2002 World Cup. The current model is simply not sustainable.
Guangzhou Evergrande are 60% owned by a guy with $4.9bn and 40% owned by another with $24.1bn. The list of things you cannot sustain with that sorta money is a short one.
if they keep transfering stars each year for the next 10 years, then yes, I thunk chinese could break into top 50. If this "madness" only lasts for 2-3 years and then dries off... no accomplishments will be made IMO
1. 60% owned by a guy with $4.9bn 2. 40% owned by another with $24.1bn. 60%>40% $4.9bn * 4 < $24.1bn If you mean the share holder has that fortune, it makes sense. 1. Share holder #1 has a fortune of $4.9bn 2. Share holder # 2 has a fortune of $24.1bn