Hello there, I am a recent American convert to the wide world of soccer. Reading about the sports history, it would seem that by the 90s and especially the turn of the millennium there has been a focus on conquering the uncharted footballing territories. 94 World Cup in America prompting the new US league, the explosion of interest in Japan and Korea and more recently the A-League in Ozzie. I have read about the two countries, India and China, the football and their problems. With the burgeoning economies and HUGE head count of both countries, you'd think they would have a better track record. Yet I am aware that both suffer from corruption and bad leadership. However, I have also read about pushes for improvement, especially in India. For those more informed, between the two which do you think is more likely to.... 1. Create a strong, internationally well regarded league with regionally competitive teams 2. Make headway in the achievements of the countries' respective national teams.
We Chinese don't take football seriously here is a article about how the CFA are trying to reforme the Chinese League http://www.asianfootballfeast.com/?p=988 Is 2011 a rebound year for Chinese Football? Asian Football Feast’s Chinese correspondent, Zhang Bin, takes a look at the latest reforms in Chinese Football aimed at making it a powerhouse of Asian Football. After the first three rounds of the new season, the Chinese Super League has attracted 482,827 fans through the gates, with a average attendance of 20,188, the highest record since the league restructured from C-League Jia-A to CSL in 2004. It might be a little early to say there will be a significant increase in CSL attendance, but attendance growth in recent years has generally been in an upward direction. CSL Average attendance by year Code: Season Average Att 1994 16,326 1995 23,790 1996 24,266 1997 21,220 1998 21,335 1999 19,909 2000 19,901 2001 18,296 2002 14,984 2003 17,710 2004 10,838 2005 10,284 2006 10,611 2007 15,112 2008 13,386 2009 16,059 2010 14,580 Guangzhou Evergrande moved their home games from the 30,000 seat Yuexiushan Stadium to Galaxy Stadium, which has a capacity of 60,161. Their attendances have increased from an average of around 20,000 to 40,000. The season opener against former CSL giant Dalian Shide attracted 53,100 fans and the match against Beijing Guo’an attracted a respectable 38,612 spectators in pouring rain. The season opener at Galaxy Stadium between Guangzhou and Dalian Shide Some unforeseen circumstances hit Hangzhou Greentown, forcing the club to move their home games from the Yellow Dragon stadium to the cities of Yiwu and Jiaxing. The Yellow Dragon stadium will be refurbished this year for the 8th annual Disabled People’s Games to be held at the stadium this October. Hangzhou doesn’t have a second stadium that complies with the CSL’s standards for stadiums. Hangzhou’s average attendance, as a result, has dropped from around 15,000 to 7,000. The CSL was beset by scandal is 2010, with the scandal going right to the top of the CFA. Three former Vice-Presidents, together with some referees and players, have been arrested due to match fixing and gambling. But things are getting better this year; the increase of attendance is a reflection of the image. Fans now talk more about the game itself than the scandals. You could say the CSL is on a road to revival as it has a huge domestic football market, and probably the biggest football market in Asia. Still a lot of hard work needs to be done. At the top level the new look CFA, CSL Committee and the C-League Committee have draw up a series of plans in order to reconstruct the league system. It has placed a lot of demands on clubs. The CFA published the “Access critera for professional league clubs”, the second edition of the regulations, with the first edition published in 2002. The criteria includes 19 provisos, including: Clubs must be independent legal entities; In youth team structure, Clubs must have U19, U17, U15 and U10 teams; Clubs must have their own training base, with at least 4 standard pitches. At least one of them must have lights; CSL clubs must invest at least 3m CNY (AUD$425,000) into youth development, and C-League D1 clubs must invest 2m CNY (AUD$286,000) into youth development; Clubs should have their own stadium, if the stadium is loan from the local government the contract term should be at least three years; CSL clubs must have a minimum season revenue of 30m CNY (AUD$4.3m), and C-League D1 clubs must have a minimum season revenue of 15m CNY (AUD$2.14m). Starting from this season, the CSL requires a minimum season budget of 40 million CNY (AUD$6.1m) for each club. That means players may awardedca higher salary and clubs must spend more on facilities and youth academies. Club owners are willing to splash the caash. It is reported the total season budget of the 16 clubs reached AUD$244.5m, with Guangzhou Evergrande announcing a season budget of AUD$76.2m, the highest in CSL history. The CSL Committee forced all CSL clubs to participate in the CSL Reserve League. The reserve team will play a day after the Super League encounter at the home teams’ training center. It provides game time for second choice players, allowing them to keep match fitness. Priot to this season clubs were given the choice whether to compete in it or not. The CFA published working targets for the next 5 years and a development plan for the next 10 years of Chinese Professional Football in February. It wants to create a sounder base for the nation’s domestic football by expanding the CSL to 18 teams, the second tier (C-League Division One) to 18 or 20, and the third tier (C-League Division Two) to 22 or 24 in the next three to five years. Currently the CSL has 16 clubs; C-League D1 has 14 and will expand to 16 by next year. In order to have more teams in C-League D2, apart the 10 pro-clubs in 2010 season, the C-League Committee will allow U-21 teams of Provincial Sports Bureaus and U-21 team of CSL clubs (i.e. B Team) to compete in the new season of D2. That will increase the number of teams to 22. The league will be split into two separate leagues – the North League and the South League. The top eight of each league (16 in total) qualify for the CFA Cup 2012; the top four teams of each league (8 in total) qualify for D2 Championship play-offs with the top two teams being promoted to D1. The third placed team will enter a Promotion/Relegation play-off against the bottom team of D1. After the Chinese Football Congress, Vice-Chairman of Beijing Guo’an, Zhang Lu, commented on the expansion of D2, saying: “It is right to make the third-tier league the biggest one to make the foundation of Chinese football more solid.” The top division of amateur CAL National Championship will be re-established as the fourth level of the professional system – the C-League Division 3, which will be semi-professional. The CFA has also announced it will re-launch the FA Cup, with Toshiba signing on as the major sponsor. The FA Cup was abandoned in 2007 due to a schedule clash with Olympic Games preliminaries and a lack of sponsorship. The 2011 FA Cup will involve 30 clubs from the CSL and C-League D1, but in the long term it will be open to all of the professional clubs and the top teams of D3. Even amateur clubs or University teams will have the chance to enter the preliminary rounds. The CFA announce Toshiba as the major sponsor of the new Chinese FA Cup The CFA believes the restart of the Chinese FA Cup and expansion of the professional league system will offer young players more opportunities to play at a higher level and provide the National Team a larger player pool. The CFA and CSL Committee also plans to re-establish the League Cup, which will most likely involve all of the CSL and C-League D1 clubs, and will probably be named the Chinese Club Champions Cup. The aim of these reforms is to make the Chinese Super League one of the best leagues in Asia. Patience is still required, but it at least bring hope to fans and the media that Chinese football is on its way to a new life.
China is already a today event. India need ACL spots, 4 of it, it only have 1, even if they suck today India is big enough to deserve 4 spots. And they should fix his legue to stay All-India-League and not become just 1-city-league.
I agree with you, but is funny hearing this from someone in Argentina. I mean how many teams from the Buenos Aires area are in the A and B?
yes, but BA city is big like Los Angeles and Argentina is big like California, also that sport culture started there in 1890... and argentina is madness
Yes, I know, meant nothing bad by it. That is how it also started in Mexico, 3 city leagues (state leagues) merged in the 1930's-1940's to create the national championship. Even today there are states in Mexico with out pro-soccer teams (in the National Pyramid). India is going thru the same, where soccer is mostly popular in some cities but not in others.
i posted this in the Korean forums but I thought it'd be relevant for this thread. C-League has some notable former Korean National Team players, as well as high grossing Dario Conca, recognized star Nicolas Anelka, and Lebanon favorite Roda Antar. With top coaches like Jo Bonfrere and Takeshi Okada, I think China's C-League is light years ahead of India's NFL Thailand Brazil: 34 Cameroon: 16 South Korea: 13 Japan: 12 Ivory Coast: 9 Nigeria: 8 France: 5 Ghana: 5 Serbia: 3 China: 3 England: 2 Argentina: 2 Scotland: 2 Laos: 2 Algeria: 1 Nambia: 1 Slovakia: 1 Singapore: 1 USA: 1 Madagascar: 1 Guinea: 1 Switzerland: 1 Portugal: 1 Pakistan: 1 Sweden: 1 Croatia: 1 Romania: 1 Notable Players: Robbie Fowler (Muangthong United) Total Foreigners: 129 Total AFC Foreigners: 32 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Japan Brazil: 31 South Korea: 18 North Korea: 5 Australia: 4 France: 1 USA: 1 Egypt: 1 Columbia: 1 Sweden: 1 Holland: 1 Croatia: 1 Serbia: 1 Notable Players: Kim Bo-Kyung (Cerezo Osaka), Lee Keun-Ho (Gamba Osaka), Robert Pires (Jubilo Iwata), Freddie Ljungberg (Shimizu S-Pulse), An Yong-Hak (Kashiwa Reysol), Joshua Kennedy (Australia), Lee Chun-Soo (Omiya Ardija), Kim Young-Kwon (Omiya Ardija), Kim Jin-Kyu (Ventforet Kofu) Total Foreigners: 66 Total AFC Foreigners: 27 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- China Brazil: 19 Australia: 6 South Korea: 6 Serbia: 5 Uzbekistan: 4 Honduras: 4 Argentina: 3 Japan: 2 Romania: 2 Senegal: 2 Slovenia: 2 Uruguay: 2 Zambia: 2 Nigeria: 2 Bolivia: 1 Bosnia: 1 Bulgaria: 1 Cameroon: 1 Cape Verde: 1 Columbia: 1 France: 1 Germany: 1 Italy: 1 Lebanon: 1 New Zealand: 1 Peru: 1 Portugal: 1 Notables: Song Chong-Gug (Tianjin Teda), Ahn Jung-Hwan (Dalian Shide), Cho-Won Hee (Guangzhou Evergrande F.C.), Dario Conca (Guangzhou Evergrande F.C.), Nicolas Anelka (Shanghai Shenhua), Roda Antar (Shandong Lueng) Total Foreigners: 74 Total AFC Foreigners: 19 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Australia Brazil: 11 Holland: 9 Australia: 8 (applies to Wellington Phoenix) New Zealand: 5 England: 3 Ivory Coast: 3 Costa Rica: 2 Eritrea: 2 Scotland: 2 Malta: 2 Bahrain: 1 Germany: 1 Albania: 1 Canada: 1 Trinidad and Tobago: 1 Spain: 1 USA: 1 South Korea: 1 Ukraine: 1 Slovakia: 1 Northern Ireland: 1 Finland: 1 Argentina: 1 Portugal: 1 Uruguay: 1 Barbados: 1 Iraq: 1 Total Foreigners: 64 Total AFC Foreigners: 11 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Indonesia Cameroon: 11 South Korea: 9 Argentina: 7 Liberia: 7 Japan: 5 Australia: 3 Serbia: 3 Singapore: 3 Slovakia: 2 Uruguay: 2 Montenegro: 2 Nigeria: 2 Brazil: 2 Paraguay: 2 Croatia: 2 South Africa: 2 Saint Kitts and Nevis: 1 Ghana: 1 Chile: 1 Togo: 1 Mali: 1 Syria: 1 England: 1 Bulgaria: 1 Macedonia: 1 Malaysia: 1 Total Foreigners: 74 Total AFC Foreigners: 22 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- South Korea Brazil: 27 Australia: 4 Columbia: 4 Croatia: 3 Montenegro: 2 Uzbekistan: 2 Macedonia: 1 Ghana: 1 China: 1 Japan: 1 Bosnia: 1 Total Foreigners: 50 Total AFC Foreigners: 8 Notable Players: Alexander Geynrikh (Suwon Bluewings)[/QUOTE]
China is currently ahead of India on both the club and national levels. In the long-term I think China will continue to have the stronger league due to economic factors. They will attract better investment and more foreign stars. However, I think that India's national team will eventually pull ahead of China's. The Chinese national team has stagnated over the past decade, and cultural factors in China concerning athletic development favor individual sports over team sports like soccer.