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The magical Chinese football staged a group of god scripts that could not be written by screenwriters during the Spring Festival holiday. On the one hand, the Chinese men's football team has been very "honorably" to play the blocking skills to the extreme on the first day of the Chinese New Year, and a historic defeat against Vietnam has once again pushed the football problem to the outlet of social concern, and the previous 25 men's football team has already faced japan's defeat. On the other hand, at the Asian Cup held in India, it is very coincidental that the Chinese women's football team also faced two opponents in a row, Vietnam and Japan, both won with tenacious fighting spirit, and once again staged a reversal in the final, defeating South Korea to reach the top of Asia.
| Break through the stereotypes of women's football |
On the evening of February 6, Beijing time, the Chinese women's football team fell behind by two goals in the half, 3:2 to defeat the South Korean team, and lifted the Asian Cup again after a gap of 16 years, which was also the ninth time in the history of the sonorous roses. The news of the victory spread back to China, the Football Association, sponsors have come up with incentive measures, of which Mengniu took the lead in announcing the reward of 10 million yuan in cash for the Chinese women's football team, Alipay took out a total of 13 million yuan, of which 10 million yuan was given to the players, 3 million to the coaching staff, and the tournament champion prize money was 1 million US dollars (about 6.36 million yuan). The real "parent" of the women's football girl, the Chinese Football Association, is said to have to come up with a reward of 10 million yuan, roughly calculated, the total amount of the bonus has approached 40 million yuan.
Of course, in addition to team rewards, many female soccer players also received individual rewards. For example, Zhang Linyan, a 21-year-old young player who came on as a substitute for Jianqigong in the final, received a prize of 100,000 yuan from the people's government of her hometown Jiangyou City. Wang Shanshan, who was elected the best player of the tournament, and Zhu Jue, the best goalkeeper, will also receive the prize money awarded by the AFC.
But behind the victory, it is the bitter history of women's football. Around the world, many people wear colored glasses for girls to play football, and this view was even worse a few decades ago. They believe that women's football matches are inferior to men's football competitions in terms of rhythm, confrontation, intensity and ornamentation. This directly led to the difficulty of attracting investment in women's football, and in the absence of capital entry, the treatment of female footballers was very different from that of male players. "Women's football is poor" is the general impression of women's football in that period, in addition to the low salary, women's football even professional training equipment and stadium infrastructure are not in place. FIFA conducted a survey on the development of women's football in the world in 2014, and the results showed that for the lower ranked teams, the lack of training equipment, poor stadium infrastructure, and insufficient reserves are all important reasons for the development of women's football. When capital is treated coldly, the women's football team can receive a meager salary from the National Sports Bureau.
| Don't be a shadow of "men's football" |
In recent years, some capital has entered, and the commercial environment of women's football has improved. In 2019, Alipay announced that it would support the development of Chinese women's football in "ten years and one billion yuan", and the annual funds of 100 million yuan would be used for the improvement of the bonus and training level of the Chinese women's national football team, the protection of injuries and illnesses of women's football players and the transformation of retirement, the development of women's football technology and coaching, and the promotion and development of youth women's football sports. In the three years since the project was launched, the "Ten Years billion" plan has allocated a total of 250 million yuan to the Chinese Football Association. Nike, Mengniu, Ping An of China, Yibao, China Andwai and other 10 "China Team Partners" also extended a helping hand to the women's national football team, of which Ping An has supported the Chinese women's football team for 7 consecutive years. After these capitals entered, the number of women's football teams in youth training centers, the number of trainees, the number of U series training periods, coach training courses at all levels, the number of training trips and many other aspects have increased, and even the treatment of women's football players has also been greatly improved.
Figure | According to the FIFA Benchmark Report: Women's Football, Japan occupies the first place and China ranks second in the average and median income rankings of women's football clubs
In May 2021, FIFA released a report that further proved the improvement of the treatment of women's football in China. It shows that the average operating cost of Chinese women's football clubs has approached 2 million US dollars, ranking first. If the women's football team is "fighting against the sky", then the men's football team is completely "lying and winning". Thanks to the improvement of commercialization and the help of capital, the salaries of Chinese men's football teams are generally in the million yuan, and many players have annual incomes as high as tens of millions. Under such good conditions, men's football is still "not a climate".
Chinese women's footballer Wang Shuang once lamented on Weibo: "When you support the perspective of women's football, it is no longer to satirize men's football." When your support is to see not only us in the national team, but also other female footballers in the club, bringing them the meaning of playing, then our Chinese women's football team will be really strong in the future. ”
The "world of difference" in the treatment between men's football and women's football has also made many people realize that although the sportsmanship of women's football is commendable, "fighting with hunger" is not feasible, and if you want to obtain long-term and effective development, you cannot do without continuous financial support. At present, the sponsors of Chinese women's football are divided into two categories, one is the "Chinese team partners", including Nike, Mengniu, Ping An of China and other 9 companies, but the "China team partners" for the sponsorship of the Football Association includes seven teams, and the Chinese women's football team can not get much.
The other is a special sponsor of women's football, also called "China National Women's Football Team Partner", but the list of companies on this list is very small. According to public information, only the social software "Little Red Book" and the second-hand car trading platform "Renrenche" are brands that only sponsor Chinese women's football. As for the corporate awards after the awards of the women's group, it is a one-time source of funds. In order to have sustained financial support, it is urgent to increase the national attention of women's football, but even if women's football has made great achievements, it is more difficult than imagined to increase attention. The first is that stereotypes are hard to change. In FIFA's report, only 5% of respondents believe that women's football is attractive for investment, and nearly 30% of people still feel that football is "a sport that challenges women" and "is not a women's sport in the traditional sense". Secondly, the attention paid to women's football in the world is not high. At present, all international and domestic football events held in the world are mainly men's football, while women's football events are rarely concerned, and women's football in various countries has low salaries, few teams, and few games.
Internationally, most of the women's football event resources are packaged and sold to sponsors as a giveaway for men's football sponsorship rights, and the Japanese women's football team and the United States women's football team have also reported that they are underpaid to work odd jobs to survive. Women's football wants to change the status quo of low attention, in addition to improving competition and maintaining a high position, it still has to look for opportunities from the environment.
| The "financial solution" of football |
In the past 30 years of reform and opening up, we have well understood and practiced the commodity market, but what is the capital market has never been unified. The capital market is not a financing channel, nor is it a simple investment place, nor is it a place where supply finds demand, but a complete set of incentive and constraint mechanisms that encourage everyone to better serve others by improving their own capabilities and receive returns in the process.
Chinese football is no exception, if a country has an effective incentive mechanism, it will promote the country's labor productivity to increase, economic prosperity, stock market rise are derived from this. If the level of football in a country is not high, we should consider the incentive mechanism of the football industry in the market, rather than simply discussing the problem from the technical level. Over the years, we have brought in foreign aid and foreign teachers, and we have held professional leagues, which have greatly increased the income of players, in exchange for really doubtful results.
The problem with Chinese football is precisely the valuation error, and the football market has a negative incentive mechanism similar to the "overvaluation destroys entrepreneurship" in the early madness of nasdaq. When Nasdaq was crazy, investors saw a new network company and bought it, pushing its stock price all the way up, resulting in any naïve young man with a business plan, no matter how illusory, he could raise funds and start a new company; then no matter how bad the performance of the new company, as long as the investor liked, he could obtain a listing status; finally, no matter how poor the company's operating level, its founders could sell the original stock and leave with a large amount of money. Nasdaq has a much higher percentage of companies that have failed over the years than in other markets. The entire market has formed a wrong incentive mechanism, no need for performance support, no need for practical operation, as long as investors like, you can go public; after the listing, the stock price is still very high, so high that a person has no motivation to continue to run the company and only wants to retire early to enjoy life, the market itself Inherent positive incentive mechanism has lost its function, replaced by negative incentives brought by high valuation.
The result of too many fans liking and paying attention to Chinese football is that the football market is flooded with sponsors and investors' money, which can only be invested in the teams of the national league, and the number of teams is fixed, resulting in the income of football practitioners (including players, coaches, organizers, etc.) has been high enough to enjoy life without them continuing to work hard, which creates a negative incentive.
Why did Nasdaq only prosper for 2 years, while the high valuation phenomenon of Chinese football continued for 20 years? The possible reason is that Nasdaq has expanded rapidly and various network companies have gone public, resulting in investors lowering their valuation levels. However, the size of China's league has never expanded, maintaining a high valuation environment for existing practitioners. If we expand the size of the league, determine the number of football teams participating in the league in the region according to the number of populations, allow multiple teams in a province, allow foreign teams to register in the Chinese league, and open up foreign players to play in China, these policies are similar to market expansion, which may be the best way to combat the negative incentives brought about by high valuations at this stage.
| The economic value of football |
Known as the "world's first sport", football has formed a huge football market in the world, football is pervasive, pervasive in all corners of the world, whether it is geographical distribution or sociality is far more than other industries. FIFA has more than 200 member states and 200 million personnel (including athletes, coaches, team doctors, fitness coaches, referees and companies serving directly or indirectly). On an average of 5 people per individual, there are as many as 1 billion people living in FIFA, which means that 20% of the world's population lives on football. FIFA has become the world's largest and best enterprise, and the holding of the World Cup and football events on all continents has attracted the attention of hundreds of millions of fans, and has also brought hundreds of millions of dollars to the host country or region. The commercial value of football has had a greater impact on the composition of a country's economic framework, and its share of the entire economic arena is being blown away by other industries.
Football, the world's first sport, has a wide influence, which is unquestionable, from Europe to Asia to the Americas, from children to the elderly, where there is football, there are cheering crowds, and it is precisely because of this wide attention that it has aroused the interest of businesses in football, which is called the "attention economy" in economics. Strong commercial groups have grabbed the football market, bought their own clubs, named important competitions, established their own corporate image, and promoted their own products, so as to expand the influence of enterprises and enhance the connotation of enterprises.
While receiving sponsorship from major consortiums and becoming their image spokespersons, football clubs are also using football as a "product" to make a lot of money. Professional football clubs have three main sources of income, namely tickets, advertising and sponsorship, and television broadcast fees. Ticket revenue accounts for 40%-50% of total revenue, TV fees account for 30%, advertising and sponsorship account for 15%, and others account for 5%. In Europe, the ticket revenue of a game in a professional club (Class A) is as high as 2 million to 3 million US dollars, and the annual ticket revenue is about 1000-50 million US dollars. Even many famous clubs go to the capital market to circle money, and they are making a lot of money. In 1991, Manchester United Football was listed on the London Stock Exchange as a club company, creating the first listing of football stocks in the world. Since entering the stock market, it has achieved a double harvest with competition and operation. By 1998, Manchester United shares had risen by almost 700 per cent, and with an absolute advantage of £87.9 million in current assets, many of Europe's biggest names would be far behind and topped the list.
Returning to football itself, whether it is for fans, players, or even a nation, a country, football is sometimes more than just a sport. In 2007, when the Iraqi men's football team lifted the trophy of the Asian Cup, the entire Iraq stopped fighting. At that moment, Iraqis of different factions, different religions, and different races laid down their arms and took to the streets, rejoicing. Also that year, more than 20,000 Iraqi civilians died in the fighting. For the championship-winning Iraq, football is both life and death, race and religion.
There are so many precious moments about football that, for various reasons, sparkle on the stars of history and are remembered by the world. Football has long gone beyond the pure sports category, for some people, some people, and even some countries, football is a spirit, a totem, a belief. That's the beauty of football, and no sport in the world transcends life and death and race as soccer. Because of this, the football economy has endured.
Source: FIFA Benchmark Report, CCTV News, Little Red Book
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