John Yan – Inside World Football

John Yan: The trouble with instant wealth

Paul Nicholson — Thu, 23 Jul 2015 11:11:43 +0000

Zhang Xizhe has returned to Beijing Guoan Football Club the club that sold him to the Bundesliga club Wolfsburg 166 days ago. He didn’t play a minute for the hugely improved German club, under the price tag of €2 million. Dispritied and tired, he told me that he would never play abroad again.

Zhang Xizhe was the midfield maestro of Beijing, a key figure of the national team as well, at the golden age of footballers,

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John Yan: Creating order with Iron Fists 铁拳捶不出秩序

Paul Nicholson — Thu, 09 Jul 2015 11:29:45 +0000

It was a nasty video, the link been posted on my weibo (Chinese version of twitter, but under governance for sure) account for several hours, and with quite a few football supporters impatiently asking me to take a look.

They were desperate for any help.

I receive similar links to all kinds of complaints or protests, almost every day, and I was becoming tired and bored with this stuff. Most of these links disappear overnight,

John Yan: To Russia with hope 出线第一

Paul Nicholson — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 11:38:36 +0000

If one can believe the social media world, Team China should have already qualified for World Cup 2018. Even though the AFC has only just announced the draw for the eight groups, which is only the secondary stage of a long long qualification process for the Russian tournament.

While China was announced as the seeded team in a group containing Qatar, the Maldives, Bhutan and Hong Kong, still in the TV studio while broadcasting the draw as it happened in the AFC headquarters in KL,

The post John Yan: To Russia with hope 出线第一 appeared first on Inside World Football.

John Yan: When Team China meets the Voice of China 当中国之队遇上”中国好声音”

Paul Nicholson — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 22:32:51 +0000

When a huge volume of capital enters an industry, the impact can be overwhelming, the industry can be changed from top to bottom. At least this is what football fans in China would expect to happen, as capital is changing the outlook of football, particularly under the big change in circumstances for the game as it becomes a hot area in Chinese society.

The latest breakthrough was the result of media companies bidding for the media rights of Team China.

John Yan: China breaks its reform mould 改革，挑战的开始

Paul Nicholson — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 04:53:11 +0000

This could be the beginning of a new era for football in China, this could also be a new chapter in the history of football the sport. On March 16, the first Monday after the National Congress, the central government issued this document: The Overall Reform Plan For Football In China. It would be hard for us to find out a similar precedent that the national council would issue a formal policy, which covers up to 50 different issues in the football industry,

John Yan: Chinese money’s global football reach 足球资本，逐利而行

Paul Nicholson — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 00:04:37 +0000

In the same week Team China played against Australia in the quarter-final of the Asian Cup, more financial news related to Chinese international investments in football came out: three European acquisitions, as well as Guangzhou Evergrande FC’s purchase of Brazilian international players.

China is far from a hotbed of football talents or achievements, but Chinese money has been flexing its muscles on the international stage.

Team China didn’t continue its hot streak in the quarter-final of the Asian Cup,

John Yan: Team China – that’s the way the fortune cookie crumbles

Paul Nicholson — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 13:26:16 +0000

Not many people had expected that Team China would qualify for the second stage of the Asian Cup held in Australia, after just two group matches. On the contrary, before the tournament started, quite a few journalists who have covered the national team for a long period, were joking about coming back home after those two matches.

That was how low the expectations had been for the international team.

But after victories against Saudi Arabia and then Uzbekistan,

John Yan: From Three Stripes to Swoosh 装备赞助，中国足球冲出亚洲

Paul Nicholson — Thu, 08 Jan 2015 13:11:27 +0000

The public attention for Team China’s trip to Australia this January has been very high, even though the topics mostly are not related to the potential achievements of this team in 2015 Asian Cup. Alain Perrin, the French head coach of Team China, selected a reasonably young team, with an average age of 24.5 years old, and laid off quite a few settled international players. However, the stories were all about other issues, like a funny Now We Start departure ceremony held on the sports channel of CCTV,

John Yan: Football is vanishing from Chongqing 一个升级顶级联赛成功的老牌俱乐部

Paul Nicholson — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 09:14:16 +0000

A newly promoted club to the Chinese Super League has suddenly became the club most likely to be bought out. The story surrounding Chongqing Lifan FC, has become the latest major headline in Chinese football.

Chongqing is one of the four municipality cities in China, along with Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. It is politically the most important city in the southwest of China, and experienced a great political earthquake in recent years as Mr.

John Yan: Platini’s style breaks down the Chinese walls 普拉蒂尼：中国足球必须依靠政府

Paul Nicholson — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 15:16:43 +0000

On the eve of November 11, the so called ‘Singles Day’ in Chinese internet language, two tired French gentlemen, dragging their luggage, took the shuttle bus from terminal 2 to terminal 3 in Beijing International Airport. Some passengers recognised that one of them was Michel Platini, and were astonished, others retorted that “How could the President of UEFA be getting on a shuttle bus in Beijing?”

But it was indeed Michel Platini, who had squeezed 36 hours into his busy schedule to accept an invitation from Netease Sport,

John Yan: CSL cliffhanger keeps us hanging on 中超”第一悬念”

Paul Nicholson — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 08:49:36 +0000

In the second to last round of the 2014 CSL season, Beijing Guoan FC went to Guangzhou to play defending champions Evergrande, Before the match, Beijing had 63 points, Guangzhou 69 points. A draw would secure the fourth consecutive title for Guangzhou.

The match was played on October 28, a nervous and dire match in which neither side could find any rhythm going forward – on came the 4 added minutes. Beijing used their last substitute,

John Yan: 马云的足球挑战 Alibaba and investing in football’s future

Paul Nicholson — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 03:28:01 +0000

Ma Yun and his company Alibaba, have arrived on the world stage. The company’s blockbuster IPO in New York on September 19 turned the company the second biggest internet company in the world. The evaluation of the company surpassed $220 billion after the first day on the market, for the following several days, even though there was a reasonable fall in its price, it still worth more than $210 billion.

Ma Yun, a former English teacher from Hang Zhou,

John Yan: Mr Perrin, there are only 42 kids in the younger age group… 四十二个孩子

Paul Nicholson — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 11:45:18 +0000

Alan Perrin started his career as the head coach of China national team formally, and played two friendly matches during the FIFA international match week. China didn’t lose these two, which were a victory against Kuwait and a draw against Jordan, both played at home. The Frenchman’s first mission will be taking Team China to next year’s Asian Cup held in Australia.

China is allocated in Group C, with Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia and North Korea as opponents,

John Yan: Guangzhou, Liujian and CFA in limbo 青岛中能，足协无能

Paul Nicholson — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 11:32:44 +0000

Bottles were flying on the pitch side, and Guangzhou Evergrande & Taobao FC were losing their grip on the Asian Champions League Trophy bit by bit. The quarter final of ACL between the trophy holders and the Australian club, West Sydney Wanderers, played August 27, was a spirit sapping match.

The Australian side is not that strong that anyone would consider them favorite to qualify for the semi-final, however, they came with a clear tactical plan,

John Yan: No Saints or sin as Wang joins CFA elite 王健林：”顾问”怎问南安普顿？

Paul Nicholson — Sat, 25 Jan 2014 14:41:48 +0000

Just in the middle of the noise of Wang Jianlin’s potential purchase of Southampton FC, another piece of news related to The richest man in China and CFA (China Football Association) came out.

On January 21, 2014, the National Congress of CFA was finally held in a small town outside of Beijing. A new generation of leaders of CFA was elected by raised hands, and Wang Jianlin was appointed as the Adviser of CFA.

John Yan: China’s CSL shows growth but can it grow up? 职业化二十年，价值几何？

Paul Nicholson — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 12:39:35 +0000

The 2013 edition of China Super League Value Report was recently released by Netease.com and Total Sports. This is the second edition of the annual report on professional football in China.

The report is divided into four parts: the management of the China Super League Company, which is a body like the English Premier League Committee; the second part covers the financial situation of the 16 clubs in the top division; the third part looks at a hot issue –