CHINA ADVENTURE MET WITH GREAT WALL OF DIFFICULTY
China at the best of times is a wonderful place to learn about an ancient culture and see a big wall. However, as the A-League's best and brightest try and ply their trade in the most populated nation in the world, they are quickly learning that it is not all it's cracked up to be.
Chinese football has been rife with bribery, match-fixing, and corruption so detailed and depraved that the Chinese President Xi Jingping announced he would not only clean up Chinese football of the corruption which rival's Italy's cases. He would oversee China winning a FIFA World Cup (Not this time Xi, try again in Russia in 2018).
So you would think that player agents would be telling young players with promising career prospects and untainted records to steer clear of such trouble? You would be wrong.
Players such as Joel and Adam Griffiths, Daniel Mullen, Bernie Ibini and Erik Paartalu have left Australian shores to go ply their trade in China. Only one on that list remains.
Joel went to Beijing Guoan on the eve of the Asian Champions League and joined up with brother Ryan who scored one of Guoan's two goals in their victory at the Beijing Worker's Stadium Match day 1.
Both have since returned to the A-League twice. Joel came back last season to play a cameo with Sydney FC, left for China, and
has since returned yet again to play for the Jets. Brother Ryan
joined
Newcastle, left mid-season and now plays for Adelaide United off the bench. It's hard to see either returning.
Daniel Mullen and Bernie Ibini have both gone over to China after accepting big money contracts. Only to find that Chinese football does not play to their style and have returned quietly with little fanfare and heavy pockets.
It isn't so much that they failed, it's that just another young Australian has tried the move to China and come back looking for "playing time".
However to be fair, do we want our youngsters exposed to such a situation as farcical as the Chinese league? Yes the quality of football is very high, Chinese teams often do well at the Asian Champions League. I just feel like our youngsters would be
better served going to more technical and cleaner leagues such as the J-
League or the K-League.
Players like Sasa Ognenovski, Adrian Madaschi, Eddy Bosnar, Matt McKay, Matt Simon, Luke De Vere and Robert Cornthwaite have excelled in Korea, and Josh Kennedy is a mainstay of the J-League with Mitch Nicholls about to start his own Japanese adventure.
Agents need to be looking less at the immediate dollar signs and look long term success. China's league is not known around the world for its development of high quality players, just look at China's national team. Where Korea and Japan are and have been for quite some time doing just that. If Asia is where our young guns go to progress, then they must steer clear of China.
By Geoff Koop