Players’ pay under spotlight
Football fans furious after China’s World Cup hopes crash
It has been an extremely tough time for Chinese football fans these last few days. Consecutive defeats at the hands of Syria and Uzbekistan mean it is now almost impossible for China to qualify for the FIFA World Cup 2018.
Disappointed fans have criticized, mocked and even cursed the players. Most are focusing on one key question: Why do Chinese footballers earn so much money despite playing so badly?
International stars such as Hulk and Graziano Pelle can earn more than 15 million euros ($16 million) per year in the Chinese Super League (CSL), and the top 20 highest-paid players in China are all foreigners.
But the top-10 highest-paid domestic players all make more than 5 million yuan ($742,000) each year, and many Chinese players’ annual salaries surpass 1 million yuan. In Beijing, the 2015 annual average salary was 85,038 yuan.
Exorbitant prices
The transfer fees in the CSL are incredibly high, too, with four of the five highest world transfer fees last winter belonging to the league.
CSL clubs also had to pay exorbitant prices to buy native young players, spending 10-60 times more than their actual value even when they are not good enough to be drafted into the national team.
Chinese fans say it is fair that Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo earn $50 million per year because of their fantastic football skills. But they take a very different view of native football players with low-level skills who can earn up to 50 times more than ordinary people.
And this is the key point of the criticism. People tend to complain that things are too expensive when they go shopping. That is because we often compare the commodity price with the psychological one.
So when fans censure native players for their high salaries, what they are actually unhappy about is the fact that these players’ salaries seem to be far higher than they deserve.
Unfortunately, it is not the fans, but supply and demand in the market that decides the prices of domestic players.
Both the high salaries and transfer fees mentioned above reflect players’ exchange value, which is highly related to their scarcity.
The dearth of top-class footballers is the real factor determining some local players’ high salaries.
Protecting local interests
According to the rules governing foreign players, while clubs are allowed to have worldclass footballers such as Hulk, they still need at least seven Chinese players in the starting lineup for any CSL match.
For all the 16 clubs in the CSL, this means the league must have hundreds of native players ready to step onto the pitch, or the referee will not blow the whistle to start the game.
It also means while they can buy some highlevel foreign footballers, they also have to buy more relatively good domestic players to fill up the squad, or they will be left behind in their search for the league title.
As a result, although Chinese footballers do not come anywhere near the level of their European league peers, they are still able to get jobs in the top flight.
Furthermore, thanks to more and more capital pouring into the Chinese football market, managers must compete with each other to convince outstanding native players to join by offering salaries that are much higher than they are actually worth.
In this kind of market, managers are left with little choice. If a boss with tons of money were to operate in a genuinely free market, he would be able to choose from thousands of footballers from around the world to build a truly world-class team.
Each player in this team will get the pay he deserves and no one will criticize him for it. Less skilled footballers, whether they are Chinese or foreigners, will be eliminated or at least have no chance to draw outrageous paychecks.
Facing reality
Protectionist thinking argues that free markets do harm to homegrown players who should be protected from foreigners.
Without this intense competition, they can get more playing time in the league and then be ready for the national team.
If a manager has no reason to protect an employee who does not bring any value to the company, then why should we protect a group of footballers who constantly admit that they do not have the ability to meet their objective of becoming a top team in Asia, not to mention qualifying for the World Cup.
In fact, it is the lack of competition with high-level players and meaningless protective measures that have created a complacency which has hampered the progress of native footballers.
The only thing that should be protected in Chinese football is the next generation’s dream of playing the game.
To do this, we should let children believe that only the best footballers deserve to get high pay. Only competition with the best, and not protection from the best, can make them become better players.