The Hulk is a superhero character appearing in Marvel Comics. Hulk's real name is Bruce Banner, an intelligent scientist with expertise in nuclear physics. During an experiment, he was suddenly exposed to gamma rays, leading to the transformation of his body into a green giant, with unparalleled strength but difficult to control.
The European football field also had a big, muscular and brave player with a similar name. That was Hulk, the striker who played 49 times for the Brazilian national team, played for Porto and Zenit Saint Petersburg, two famous teams.
Although he has not yet reached the level of a top star, Hulk is a formidable goalscorer, having scored more than 400 goals in his career and won the top scorer title in the Portuguese national championship and the Russian Premier League.
However, by both an interesting and ironic coincidence, instead of being marked by shining moments or titles, the biggest highlight in Hulk's career was his move to Shanghai SIPG at the age of 29, the peak of his career, with a transfer fee of 46 million pounds and a salary of 320,000 pounds per week.
The day Hulk landed at the airport, hundreds of fans gathered around to welcome the most famous player to ever choose Shanghai as the next destination for his career. As soon as he stepped out of the airport, fresh bouquets of flowers were given to the Brazilian striker, along with a Shanghai SIPG scarf.
Chinese football had never seen such a big deal. Hulk became the pioneer of the trend of top stars moving to this country of billions of people. Over the next 3 years, many famous names in world football followed the Brazilian striker and the fees were increasingly inflated.
Six months later, Oscar also joined Shanghai SIPG. The transfer fee was around £60 million and the salary was estimated at £400,000/week. This deal shocked the whole of Europe. At that time, Oscar was a mainstay at Chelsea and was only 25 years old. A bright future and top football awaited this flamboyant attacking midfielder.
Carlos Tevez, Premier League champion with Man Utd and Man City, also followed the call of China. Ezequiel Lavezzi - PSG star, Alex Teixeira - Liverpool's target, and striker Jackson Martinez were also attracted by the huge sums of money offered by the billion-people country's football teams.
The rise of the Super League (Chinese National Championship) comes with the desire of the President of the Chinese Football Association to bring the country's football to World Cup level (attending and hosting the World Cup). Super League clubs are spending more and more to turn the country of a billion people into a football superpower.
After witnessing his student Oscar move to the East, coach Antonio Conte, who was then leading Chelsea, issued a warning: "The Chinese football transfer market is a danger to all teams in the world, not just Chelsea."
Meanwhile, Arsene Wenger, his counterpart at Arsenal, commented: "China probably has enough financial strength to move all European tournaments to this country."
Thus, the Hulk became a symbol of Chinese football's ambition to become a giant. However, unlike the Hulk in American movies, the Hulk of Chinese football was just a crazy dream. After a decade, the bubble burst and the stars left one after another.
Jack Sealy is part of the trend of players moving to the Super League, but he is not a star. In December 2015, he moved from Hong Kong (China) to the mainland with a contract with Changchun Yatai. He was attracted by the wave of stars coming to China to play football and of course the economic aspect.
“I came to China when the league was growing so fast, so it was interesting to be in that special period,” Sealy said. “Everyone was hearing about this transformation, but no one really understood what was going on.
And as soon as you tell someone who knows football, they'll say, 'Oh! You're going to the Super League!'. I don't regret it at all. It was a great experience."
It's exciting but also incredibly strange. "You have to forget who they are," Sealy added of the famous players he faced on the pitch. "I've come up through the ranks and they've come down through the ranks, depending on your point of view. But when I get on the pitch I see them as normal people and I try my best. But it's still mystical."
By 2019, the Super League's reputation and influence (in terms of money) were so great that there was speculation that Jiangsu Suning were about to sign Gareth Bale from Real Madrid, with a salary of £1 million a week for a 3-year contract.
Less than two years later, Jiangsu Suning went out of business due to financial problems. The team was so poor that they had to auction off their team bus to cover costs.
Why did Chinese football collapse so quickly? Things started to go downhill when the Chinese Football Association (CFA) imposed a special tax of up to 100% on foreign player purchases, to curb rampant buying in the national championship.
Not stopping there, the CFA also strictly prohibited the attachment of sponsors to team names and announced the imposition of a salary cap in December 2020. At that time, the CFA expected this move to "curb money-making football" and create an "investment bubble" in the national team.
For a long time, China’s top football governing body has warned against wasteful spending in the national league. In 2017, the CFA announced it would clamp down on cash flow and clamp down on “irrational investments,” as well as accusing clubs of “burning money” and paying foreign players unreasonably high salaries.
The wage cap has had the desired effect. The cap means foreign football stars can only earn a maximum of £52,000 a week, a lot less than before.
Some clubs need such constraints because their overspending has led to mounting debt. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that most club owners come from the real estate sector and have cash flow problems.
On top of that, the impact of the Covid pandemic. China's strict control policies have meant that the schedule has become sparse and matches have had to be held in empty stadiums. Revenue from television rights and advertising has dropped significantly.
Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Samir Memisevic has been playing for Hebei FC since February 2020, but from his second season at the club, he has felt something was wrong behind him.
"The second season, I thought something was wrong," he said. "After a few months, financial problems started to arise. Then the team had big problems with the domestic players. They didn't get paid for months and I was sure that by the end of the season, Hebei would no longer exist."
Memisevic then agreed to move to Beijing Guan on loan. He has now moved to Dubai (UAE) to play for Al Nasr.
As for Hebei, the club that had signed Lavezzi, Mascherano and Gervinho had to disband its youth team in a desperate bid to survive. Some staff were also put on unpaid leave for months. But all efforts were in vain. Earlier this year, Hebei was dissolved.
"I feel sorry for Hebei because of the effort and money they spent. It should have been a big team with many stars in the squad," Memisevic said sadly. "Now, that name has disappeared.
It's sad and it's worse because many other teams in Guangzhou and Wuhan are also being wiped out. Hopefully Chinese football will get better because they have invested a lot of money. But I don't think it's the same as before."
For John Hassett, the Super League would not be the Super League without Guangzhou City, his beloved team. The club, once led by Eriksson and Giovanni van Bronckhorst, boasted a roster of renowned domestic and international names, and was eventually dissolved in March 2022.
Every home game, Hassett looks forward to meeting and accompanying the fans cheering for the home team. "For many people, the social aspect is as important as the football," Hassett shared.
"Before and after the match, we all gathered at the tiny shop outside the stadium to have a drink and chat. It became a regular haunt for local fan groups."
The foreign Guangzhou City fan added: "We were all sad. After the club dissolved, we held a memorial service for our beloved team at that familiar pub. We also met a few other groups of fans who came outside the stadium to drink beer. That moment was very emotional."
“Part of the reason is that no club can be self-funded,” Hassett said. “Tickets are very cheap. Our season tickets are around £50 or £60. Students get them for less. Most fans don’t buy official club shirts. They buy fake ones outside the stadium for £3.”
"Generating revenue for the clubs is the biggest problem for the Super League. When the economy is in a state of austerity, where will the money come from?!".
At the end of last year, when everyone counted down to the time when football stadiums were allowed to open to spectators, everyone was startled and asked the question: Where did the money go?!
Not only is Chinese football a waste of money in high-profile transfers, it is also rotten from within due to corruption. The scandal involving Li Tie, the former coach of the Chinese national team, has brought the darkest corners of the country's football scene into the light.
The Chinese team's failure at the 2023 Asian Cup when they failed to score a single goal against Tajikistan, Lebanon, Qatar and were eliminated in the group stage, left great pain for fans. Coach Aleksandar Jankovic was fired and Chinese football continued to face a new crisis.
With a population of over one billion people and the largest economy in the world, China does not have a quality national championship, nor does it have a national team capable of competing at the continental level, let alone the World Cup.
It is a burning question that Chinese football has yet to find a solution to. But at least in the tumultuous years of recent years, managers know that the solution is not simply money.
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