Will China Affect European Football Club Share Prices?

Football might have started out being about the game, but these days it’s far more about the money. Of course, wealthy billionaires buying up European football clubs like Monopoly properties is nothing new but it’s the recent influx of Chinese investment that has the fans worried.

Not only are Chinese investors buying some of Europe’s biggest football clubs such as Italy’s AC Milan and England’s Manchester City, but China are also paying big money to bring some of the world’s best players into the Chinese Super League.

Over the last year football superstars Ramires, Jackson Martinez, Alex Teixeira and Oscar have all been snapped up by Chinese football teams for a combined pay out of over $180 million. Now, the transfer of ageing superstars abroad to places like America or the Middle East is very common, yet none of these players are even approaching the end of their careers – far from it. Rather, this is a group of football players that were playing for the best teams in Europe, but have all been tempted by the irrefutable offers of money by the Chinese. 

In fact, China invested over a staggering $300 million in 2016 on football players yet in 2011 they spent a mere $18 million. Even in 2015 the spend was only around $105 million, nearly a third of last year’s spend. So, what has brought on this sudden splurge by Chinese investors in European football?

Well, in a nutshell, because the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has identified football as a major growth region in the economy. Indeed, China who are ranked 86th in Fifa rankings and are unlikely to qualify for Russia 2018, even plan to host a World Cup in the not too distant future.

The plan appears to be that China will invest as much money as they can into football by bringing in famous players and by doing this raise the profile of their national teams. From there they hope to encourage adolescents to take up the sport so they can start churning out their own superstars.

Which is far from wrong, of course. Encouraging the future generations to play for their country is a great thing to do, however will the effect of this removal of top footballers from European clubs in the meantime damage the profitability of these European clubs?

These days’ fans follow footballers as much as they do teams – a superstar player is a club’s biggest asset for attracting TV time and sponsorship deals. If China continues to attract the biggest names over to the Chinese Super League, then it seems likely that more interest in watching Chinese football will occur. And this will mean less press and money being devoted to Europe. Yes, at the moment everyone wants to watch teams like Chelsea, Barcelona and AC Milan, but if you take away their greatest players, what will be left? Perhaps in a few years’ time, footballers will grow up desperate to play for a team like Shanghai SIPG. If this does happen Europe’s biggest teams will be sure to suffer.