Once brought in Robinho, Gilardino & Co.
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The Chinese record champions Guangzhou FC – formerly GZ Evergrande – are threatened with final elimination. The club has been struggling with financial problems for years as a result of the bankruptcy of the major real estate company Evergrande, and in 2022 Guangzhou was relegated to China League One. At the beginning of the week it was announced that the two-time winners of the AFC Champions League, which was once coached by world champions Marcello Lippi, Fabio Cannavaro and Luiz Felipe Scolari and where stars such as Paulinho, Robinho and Alberto Gilardino played, would be stripped of their professional status.
Guangzhou was one of three teams missing from the list of all participants for the three professional leagues published on Monday. Transfer market data manager “CSLDACH” describes this as “off with an announcement”. The long-time TM user has been interested in Chinese football since Carsten Jancker’s move to Shanghai Shenhua in 2006 and has been intensively involved with the Chinese Super League since Didier Drogba’s transfer to the same club in 2012, advising commentators and video game manufacturers on a voluntary basis.
“The only way the whole thing could have been prevented was to find a new investor, but that was unrealistic. Both from the debt burden and the outstanding salaries as well as from a sports policy perspective: the club’s identity is 100 percent linked to Evergrande. I couldn’t have imagined that. In addition, the ‘Chinese Dream’ formulated by President Jinping Xi and China’s great success in football had state origins with all sorts of measures such as football as a school subject. However, since the beginning of the pandemic, nothing has remained of this.
GZ’s Rise and Fall: Chinese Dream, Pandemic and Housing Bubble
In 2011, Xi Jinping presented his strategy to make China a great power in football. The clubs then invested heavily in players and coaches. In addition to Lippi and Scolari at GZ, which had just been promoted again in 2010, the Chinese money attracted names like Sven-Göran Eriksson, André Villas-Boas or Roger Schmidt and Felix Magath. For players like transfer record holders Oscar, Hulk, Paulinho, Jackson Martínez, Talisca, Anthony Modeste, Marko Arnautovic, Marek Hamsik and Axel Witsel, transfer fees of 20 million euros and more flowed – not counting the lavish salaries. Carlos Tevez is said to have received around 40 million euros for 20 games he played for Shanghai Shenhua in 2017.
However, at the beginning of the corona pandemic in 2020, the upswing in Chinese football came to an end for the time being. “CSLDACH” explains: “Chinese football has been on the losing side since Corona. Just like the success demanded and supported by the state, the failure can also be attributed to the fact that the amount of waste was simply too great. An example: I know a fitness trainer who was paid like the Chancellor at a second division club. These were other spheres in which massive amounts of money were burned.”
The burst real estate bubble and the Chinese regime’s zero-Covid policy are considered the main reasons for the decline of Guangzhou and the Chinese Dream as a whole: “Half the first league was in the hands of real estate companies before the crash. There are press reports about Evergrande’s debts worth billions. Before the 2020/21 season, sponsor names were also banned from appearing in club names. But that was just the icing on the cake. In the summer of 2021, i.e. in the middle of the season, all expensive foreign players (e.g. Talisca and Paulinho; editor’s note) were given away, and coach Cannavaro also left the club. Months before the official separation in winter, the professionals who had been naturalized for a lot of money (e.g. Alan, Elkeson or Ricardo Goulart: all transfers at a glance) also said goodbye after they had returned to their homeland months earlier due to outstanding payments. Only Tyias Browning played out the season. These players – just like Cannavaro – gave up a lot of money when the contract was terminated, otherwise the end would have been there already.”
The pandemic occurred during the same period, during which Xi’s government imposed extreme restrictions on the population. “The government’s zero Covid policy ensured that there was virtually no revenue at all on the club side because the vast majority of games were played without spectators,” says “CSLDACH”. “Players, coaches and support staff were isolated in hotels for months. No one was allowed in or out, which was a huge financial and emotional burden. For example, if players traveled to their national teams during the international break, they had to be in quarantine for several weeks before re-entering the country. The same goes for new signings. For example, a second division team was without a head coach for several months because the coach and two assistants were stuck in quarantine for ages.”
Guangzhou’s relegation and temporary sporting rehabilitation
As a result, Guangzhou only competed with local players who were without salary for months: “The club has moved to a new training center, which was commissioned long before the crisis. Later, electricity and water were no longer even paid for. In both 20/21 and 21/22, the last two Champions League seasons, GZ, like other Chinese participants, competed with the U19s due to the Corona policy. Due to the disastrous results, the club has lost some of its prestige. The performance in the league with a talented team was not enough because the insolvency spread to all areas. The monthly uncertainty was clearly noticeable among the players.” This led to relegation in December 2022 after winning just two league games.
Since April 2023, Guangzhou’s squad has consisted almost entirely of players from the Evergrande Football School. “The largest football school in the world, as was reported years ago. It looks like a university with grass fields as far as the eye can see. In the first season the team played against relegation. The talent was visible, but there was a lack of experience and competitive toughness, especially against strong foreign players. The club itself had to move out of the Tianhe Stadium (around 55,000 seats). It wasn’t all planned that way, because the large lotus blossom-like stadium was to be built, the largest in the world, with almost 100,000 spectators. Its construction was canceled after around 35 percent because no new investor was found to succeed Evergrande. Since the stadiums in China are all state-owned, GZ had to move to the Yuexiushan Stadium of arch-rivals R&F. R&F, later neutral Guangzhou City, went bankrupt and the club, like Jiangsu Suning before it, was dissolved immediately after winning the title in 2020. Despite everything, the fans stuck together and still form a strong core today.”
Guangzhou almost managed to get promoted in 2024, which is why there has recently been optimism again in the metropolis of 14 million from a purely sporting perspective. The team got used to their new home, the Huadu Stadium, in record time and, with Rimvydas Sadauskas, Juan Peñaloza and Juan Alegría, three foreign players were signed for the first time. The latter has now moved to Portimonense SC in Portugal. “CSLDACH” says about the actually good year: “The coaching team around Salva Suay did an outstanding job and almost led the team to promotion. After the club was actually supposed to be approved for the 2025 season and was also named by the association as a provisional participant in the 2nd league, several players publicly made disparaging comments on social channels shortly before Christmas 2024 about the announced approval. This may be understandable from a financial perspective; it was about unpaid wages from last year. Personally, I consider it to be bad form, as the players should be well aware that the club was on the brink of the abyss.” According to the association, the club was unable to guarantee the necessary financial resources for the 2025 season. Evergrande had previously provided the club with large loans, and further ones would lead to over-indebtedness.
Guangzhou’s case: “China ultimately got in its own way”
Now Guangzhou FC is probably at the end, although in a statement it assured that it was still hopeful – and apologized to the fans. The possibility of restarting in an amateur league, as in comparable cases in European leagues, does exist, but it has not been taken advantage of by Chinese clubs in the past. The dissolution is therefore likely. Chinese football is losing its most successful and, with Evergrande in the background, formerly richest club, the largest football school and the planned largest stadium in the world.
“CSLDACH” almost summarizes: “China ultimately got in its own way when it came to football, politically and economically. In terms of sport, the country was unable to produce any significant talent that would be an option for a larger league in Europe. Since 2011, many, many measures have been taken and many billions have been invested. But even the Asian Cup couldn’t be held in China for political reasons. China wanted to get the 2034 World Cup, but ultimately didn’t even apply. That is the bitter reality. A league that was well formed around expensive players now looks like it did 25 years ago, shortly after football was professionalized.”
