Chelsea football club’s plans for world domination came a mouse click closer to realisation on Monday with a Chinese internet tie-up adding more than 100-million people to the club’s potential fanbase.
The launch of a Mandarin-language website in conjunction with China’s biggest portal, Sina, is part of an intensifying global contest for hearts and wallets that pits Chelsea against Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus.
It will soon be followed by the release of a Bollywood film aimed at making Stamford Bridge lovers out of India’s middle class, as well as a pre-season tour to the United States by Jose Mourinho’s team and an intensified Asia marketing strategy with Adidas and Samsung.
With the world’s biggest population and the fastest-growing economy, China is seen as having huge potential by football giants such as Manchester United and Real Madrid, both of which have sent teams to tour here in recent years.
Apart from lucrative friendlies every two or three years, however, few foreign clubs have made much money here because average incomes are still below £1 000 per year. Two Manchester United-themed restaurants in Chengdu were recently forced to close because customers were not willing to pay extra for the brand.
Instead of opening their own outlets, Chelsea — which are neck and neck with Manchester United in terms of popularity, according to market-research surveys — will focus their efforts on the internet, grassroots support and cooperation with the national football association.
Their new website partner, Sina, is the most powerful force in the Chinese internet, which has more than 120-million users. Sina will translate material from Chelsea’s English website and add comment from a local perspective in return for a share of revenues from advertising, sponsorship, online sales and membership subscriptions. Within a year, it is expected to turn in a profit.
At its launch, the website featured a video clip of Ashley Cole speaking Mandarin with a cockney accent, still pictures of Frank Lampard kissing his ring finger to celebrate a goal, and a haggard Mourinho reading from an autocue about how much he is looking forward to answering questions from millions of Chinese fans.
In the days and months ahead, Chelsea will also announce plans for a first-team tour of China — possibly as early as 2008 — and the hosting of the Chinese Olympic football team at the London club’s training ground later this year. In association with the Asian Football Confederation, Chelsea will also expand a grassroots coaching programme from the current two cities — Qingdao and Wuhan — to 15, including Beijing and Shanghai.
Dong Lu, a leading Chinese football journalist, said Chelsea appeal to younger fans more than Manchester United or Real Madrid. ”Their popularity has grown in the past two or three years because of the impressive power of their football. Until now, their fans have been scattered around a number of different bulletin boards. Sina, as the biggest force in the Chinese internet, can bring them together. There is great potential for the two to develop their business.”
But despite the emphasis on youth at the website launch ceremony, one older Chelsea supporter also crept out of the woodwork — the British ambassador, William Ehrman, who said he became a Blues fan in 1958. The Premier League has a devoted following in China, thanks partly to the relative success of homegrown players such as Sun Jihai at Manchester City and new arrivals such as Zheng Zhi at Charlton.
Activities off the pitch are just as important in the race to be the world’s top football brand.
Paul Smith, the club’s business-affairs director, said he had just been to India, which the club has identified as a potential growth market despite its reputation as a cricket-mad nation. He revealed that Chelsea will make a ”cameo appearance” in an upcoming Bollywood film in which a key character is a Blues fan.
State of the nation’s game
China qualified for their first World Cup in 2002, leading to predictions that they would dominate the sport, but they were knocked out in the first round and failed to qualify for last year’s tournament. Fifa, world football’s governing body, ranks them 84th.
A professional football league was launched in 2004, and is known as the Chinese Super League. The number of clubs has fluctuated but 15 competed in the 2006 season, which ended in October with Shandong Luneng celebrating their first title.
China’s player of the year, Zheng Zhi, signed for Charlton Athletic on loan this month, becoming the latest export to the British leagues. The most successful is the defender Sun Jihai, who signed for Manchester City in 2002, costing £2-million. He has since played 121 times for the club.
China will host the Women’s World Cup in September. The women’s team, one of the best in the world, were the losing finalists in the 1999 World Cup and the 1996 Olympics.
West Bromwich Albion were the first English team to play in China. They won all their four friendlies before an aggregate audience of nearly 250 000.
China is the birthplace of the modern game. In 2004 Fifa said that tsu chu — a traditional Chinese game that translates literally as ”to kick a leather ball” and became popular during the Han dynasty, between 206BC and 220AD — was the precursor of modern football.
— Guardian Unlimited Â