SPORTS MARKETING CHINESE SPORTS ENSEMBLES AND THEIR LEGACY
SPORTS MARKETING CHINESE SPORTS ENSEMBLES AND THEIR LEGACY
By Richard Wanjohi
China Is Super Super
If you are keen football fan , earlier this year you must have seen the kerfuffle the rumoured move of one Diego Costa from 2016-17 English Premier League champions , Chelsea to some nondescript Chinese team and an even more nondescript football league .
Having lured Brazilian youngster Oscar with a multi-million deal from the same team it almost seemed a no-brainer that the Spanish striker ( Costa ) would follow suit without much ado . This was during the transfer window open within Dec-Jan mid-season break of the European leagues .
However , the deal fell through but indeed the Chinese Super League – the top-tier football league had finally shone its spotlight to the rest of the world . This is a league which includes some of the budding and former stars as Argentine Carlos Tevez , Brazilian Ramires , Paulinho to name but a few .
Interestingly this allure seemed to have attracted Kenya ’ s own striking talent , former Gor Mahia Michael Olunga who had plied his trade in Europe and seemed destined for the stars . As of going to Press , we understand he is playing with the reserves or benched in his current team - Guizhou Zhicheng .
‘‘ On matters sports infrastructure , Chinese cities have sought to bid for major sporting events with the highlight of this being the 2008 Beijing Olympics Games . This sports renaissance was an important milestone to announce the Chinese ‘ dragon ’ of the 21st century .’’
Back to the Chinese Football League , thanks to the buzz created around it , it did get much coverage in mainstream media . This also forced the Chinese Football Federation ( or should we say after a slight nudge of the ruling Communist Party …?) to introduce a quota , which forced the teams to limit the number of foreign players . A sampling of say 11 players , seven ought to be Chinese , two from the Asian continent in addition , two from other parts of the world or something close to that ....
This was in a bid to curtail foreign players ’ dominance ( thanks to the allure of the monies involved ). This also hastened introduction of a salary cap to ensure players will not run the clubs aground with extravagant pay packages .
However , like some things Chinese , the Football League came with a bang - slowing down to a whimper . Early July 2017 , 13 clubs in the top tier were in the red with claims of breach of financial regulations about pay , bonuses and players transfer fees . The Asian Football Confederation is in pursuit of
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