Chinese fans have finally ushered in a long-lost summer.
The official social media of the Argentine national team announced that it will play the International Football Invitational Tournament with the Australian national team in Beijing on June 15. This is Argentina's first international competition after winning the 2022 Qatar World Cup, and the team will be based on the main team of World Cup winners, and the Hercules Cup will also arrive at that time.
It is worth mentioning that Argentine meritorious captain Rio Messi will come to China again after six years. Messi was last in China in 2017, when he was invited in his personal capacity to the General Administration of Sport for a four-day visit.
People familiar with the matter told Lazy Bear Sports that the event operator promised Messi to play at least 45 minutes when inviting foreign investment.
However, the operator did not confirm this news to Lazy Bear Sports. The operator of this competition is China Hongqiao International Investment Co., Ltd., which is responsible for investment promotion and publicity.
At the same time, with the gradual improvement of the conditions for hosting the tournament in China, including the upgrading of venues and the adjustment of national policies, the Chinese Football Association issued an announcement in March this year to call for the host cities of the Chinese men's football team to host seven international A-level matches in 2023, including four international warm-up matches for the Chinese men's football team and three U23 Asian Cups. On May 18, the Chinese Football Association announced that the Chinese men's football team will play two warm-up matches against Myanmar and Palestine in June, at the Barracuda Bay Football Stadium in Dalian.
For now, though, Chinese fans may only see that this summer – Argentina is likely to be a squad. Compared with the days before the epidemic, the Chinese plans of many clubs still cannot be implemented.
▲ Messi kisses the Hercules Cup.
reason
After winning the 2022 World Cup, the Argentine national team has only played two friendly matches on home soil. When the Pampas Eagles determine to fly east, it will not only bring Chinese fans visual enjoyment, but also understand from the level of friendship and development between the two countries, which is undoubtedly beneficial.
The year 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Argentina, and in the past half century of cooperation, exchanges between the two countries in the fields of culture, economy and trade have become more frequent. Football is no exception, and in August 2022, Argentine Ambassador to China Niu Wangdao inspected the Xi'an International Football Center project in Xi'an Xixian New Area to understand the progress of project construction and related supporting facilities. In the same year, due to the unanimous optimism of its World Cup results, a number of Chinese brands reached cooperation with the Argentine national team and won the final victory.
Bringing in top national teams to play in China is not an easy task. Lv Xi, founder of sports marketing company EMW Sports, told Lazy Bear Sports that world or continental competitions are locked in advance, other national team competitions can only be interspersed in the seasons of major professional leagues, FIFA match days sometimes hold qualifiers for large-scale events, so the difficulty of European and American high-level national teams to come to China to play is not small, this competition can be held as scheduled, behind the scenes is indispensable to many efforts.
hinder
The arrival of the Argentine men's football team undoubtedly makes Chinese fans look forward to it, but it is not difficult to find that at present, the major European football clubs have no plans to go to China this summer.
In March, Manchester United officially announced that the team would travel to the United States this summer for the club's 2023 Summer Tour. Since then, Borussia Dortmund, Arsenal, Real Madrid, AC Milan and other teams have announced their summer pre-season schedules in the United States. As for the Asian market, Premier League side Wolves with South Korean stars Hwang Hee-chan and Kim Min-ya have finalized summer schedules for South Korea, Barça will play Kobe Victory in Japan, and Tottenham and Roma will play in Singapore.
Compared with the active promotion at the national team level, the big clubs are slightly lagging behind in the agenda of returning to China.
The pomp and bustle of clubs coming to China every summer before the pandemic still seems even more nostalgic, but they have been suspended in the past few years. Taking ICC as an example, in 2015, the ICC International Champions Cup, a pre-season warm-up tournament with high recognition in the world, came to China for the first time, and Real Madrid, Inter Milan and AC Milan were the three teams participating at that time; In 2017, the number of participating teams in ICC China increased to five, and the competition venues were expanded to four cities. In 2020, the ICC was cancelled due to the pandemic.
From a sporting and business point of view, the first factor to consider when European clubs come to China this summer is the club's preparation cycle.
The preparation period for the club's summer off-season is much longer than fans think, generally taking 3 months to half a year to prepare, and there are many other important factors, including the first-team game or arrangement at the competitive level. China reopened its doors this year, and it was difficult for the team to go through all the procedures in such a short time.
A former Arsenal club headquarters employee told Lazy Bear Sports: "Arsenal announced in March this year that they will play in the United States in the summer, and the early planning and preparation may begin at the beginning of the new season in 2022. But at that time, even if the team wanted to come to China, there was a lot of uncertainty. ”
Secondly, due to the influence of the macroeconomy, domestic enterprises are not very willing to invest a large budget for European clubs to play in China.
Lu Xi told Lazy Bear Sports that more and more companies are reducing their brand communication budgets, and in addition to major competitions such as the World Cup and the European Cup, many brands do not pay enough attention to football marketing. At present, the market investment of the commercial competition is not optimistic, Argentina's official WeChat public account for the competition in China shows that although it is less than 1 month before the start of the competition, the competition is still in the process of investment, and there are no sponsors in the publicity yet.
From another level, Argentina's visit to China is dominated by non-commercial, and commercial sponsorship may not be the most important link.
The upcoming Hangzhou Asian Games this year has also become one of the constraints. As the first continental competition held in China in the post-epidemic era, both government resources and corporate budgets will be more inclined to the Asian Games. A number of industry insiders told Lazy Bear Sports that some companies that have not become official sponsors have also targeted the Asian Games and want to take this opportunity to do some ambush marketing, after all, it is a major matter of concern to the whole society.
▲ Fans who came to the scene during Dortmund's China tour in 2017.
The third is the gradual loss of companies with experience in hosting tournaments in the Chinese market.
According to Lazy Bear Sports, the head of ICC organizer Jiadalifeng in China office has been left for a long time, in addition to Jiadalifeng, there are also some local event organizers or institutions that hope to be the organizer of European clubs in China, but these companies do not have enough experience, and the opening in 2022 is relatively sudden, so the China itinerary of giant clubs has been put on hold.
Even for Chinese-funded clubs, according to Lazy Bear Sports, for the China trip, Espanyol still has to wait for the final decision on whether they can stay in La Liga this season; Serie A giants Inter Milan have also not yet decided on their itinerary, they also need to refer to the results of the Champions League competition in June, if successful, the team will have to invest energy in preparing for the European Super Cup, both clubs have planned a trip to China this year; The Wolves, on the other hand, had finalized the trip to Korea earlier, and the time left to prepare after China reopened its doors was already tight.
Although it is unlikely that major European clubs will resume their trip to China this summer, the industry generally believes that if the conditions for hosting matches in China can be gradually restored, there is still a high probability that teams will return to China next summer.
Sun Fulian, director of communications and special projects for Bundesliga China, told Lazy Bear Sports that this year's "China trip" was too late to prepare due to time constraints, but most teams have expressed their desire to return to the Chinese market and look forward to getting such an opportunity in 2024.
In April this year, the European club was already working on returning to the Chinese market. Manchester City officially held the Premier League Trophy Tour in China, and the Bayern Munich National Fan Tournament was held at the Bayern Munich Qingdao Football School, with Manchester City legend Paul Dikov and former Bayern player Claudio Pizarro in attendance.
▲Premier League Champions Trophy Tour China Station launched.
The cake of the Chinese market still has room to be tapped, but all this still requires patience and time.
As China resumes sporting events with massive spectators, spectators and practitioners alike are looking forward to the world's top teams returning to China and bringing high-level competition. Back in 2017, Tom Elsden of Mailman Group, a sports marketing consultancy, said: "Clubs have realised that they need to be present in China, not just on social media and e-commerce platforms. ”
Of course, too many things have happened in the past few years of the epidemic, and the strategies of these clubs in China are also changing, but the Chinese market is still impossible to give up.
Many fans' expectations can only be met for another year. But until then, let's enjoy what we already have – at least, we can still see Messi.
Disclaimer: This article is original by Lazy Bear Sports and may not be reproduced without authorization.