Is the soccer gold rush at an end?

ACCORDING TO REPORTS, the Chinese Football Association is to stipulate the upper limits for the players’ salaries and bonuses, how much clubs can spend on foreign players, as well as the amount that can be invested in the clubs next year. China Daily reporter Li Yang comments:

With huge investment from real estate tycoons and mammoth State-owned enterprises, the Chinese Super League is world famous for its purchasing capacity. It has come to be seen as a gold mine and some big-name foreign players and coaches have increased their income several fold before retirement by playing or coaching in the CSL.

The CFA’s move to cool down the clubs’ spending fever has been long-awaited. Third-party agencies will investigate the clubs’ financial affairs, and the new rules will make it compulsory for the clubs to disclose their basic financial data.

The big spending of China’s big clubs has actually pushed many small clubs to the brink of bankruptcy, and even made some clubs in the second division reluctant to win promotion to the first division, simply because they cannot afford it.

Reportedly, the transfer fee cap for a foreign player will be 45 million yuan ($6.49 million), and 20 million yuan for a Chinese player, which means most of the key players purchased by the clubs from home and abroad this year would be prohibitively expensive. That might be good news for the national team as it will require clubs to cultivate more young Chinese talents.

While Chinese clubs have performed well in the Asian Football Confederation’s Champions League, the Chinese national team’s position in the FIFA rankings has dropped from around 50th in the 1990s to about 90th now, during which period, the country’s professional leagues have boomed.

If these new rules are well implemented, they should ease the burden on clubs and help develop players for the national team. But the rules will be hard for the big clubs to swallow, as it will be almost impossible for them to maintain their current rosters, unless the players and coaches can tolerate big pay cuts.