Ten Chinese cities have spent billions of euros to build eight new enclosures and renovate two others for the event scheduled for the summer of 2023. Most will be completed by the end of the year.

"The Asian Cup (...) was only the prelude to a candidacy for the organization of a World Cup", declared to AFP Simon Chadwick, director of the Eurasian Sports Center of EM Lyon. Business School.

"But China's football ambitions seem to have been shattered."

In Beijing, large billboards promoting the Asian Cup still surround the major construction site of the Workers' Stadium.

This historic enclosure was demolished to be rebuilt.

Cost of the facelift: 460 million euros.

"Asian Cup or not, we will finish this stadium as planned," a worker told AFP.

Without events, China has no other opportunity to bid for a major football competition in the next decade.

And the Chinese football is in crisis.

The best players leave the clubs as wages fall.

And teams are seeing a haemorrhage of foreign stars and coaches, weary of anti-Covid restrictions.

To boost its pandemic-stricken economy, China has turned to building infrastructure like football stadiums.

View of the construction site of the Workers' Stadium in Beijing, scheduled for the Asian Cup, on May 18, 2022 Jade Gao AFP / Archives

But some of these enclosures, such as the futuristic Egret Stadium ("Stadium of the Egret") in the coastal city of Xiamen (east), were built in cities that do not have top clubs likely to use them.

"White Elephants"

Stadiums located in "relatively small" or "already equipped" cities, like many large Chinese cities, "are the most likely to become white elephants," said William Bi, a Beijing-based sports consultant.

"And with the economy down I would be surprised if they spent millions building clubs that deserve a stadium of this size."

The term "white elephant" refers to infrastructure built at great expense but little used, which therefore becomes a financial burden for local communities.

Most new stadiums are designed as complexes that can also host concerts.

But the anti-Covid restrictions have already dealt a severe blow to the entertainment sector.

This construction frenzy started after real estate moguls started buying stakes in the clubs.

A dozen of the 18 first division teams are now financed by real estate groups.

The construction site of the Guangzhou Evergrande stadium, in difficulty, September 17, 2021 STR AFP / Archives

But the sector is currently in crisis and many developers are crippled with debt.

In Canton (south), the town hall seized the site of the stadium at 1.7 billion euros from the promoter in great difficulty Evergrande - owner of Guangzhou Evergrande (1st division).

The enclosure was initially to be in the shape of a lotus flower and accommodate 100,000 people, but the ambitions should be revised downwards.

"Investing in football was an effective way for the promoters to have political support", because the State is very proactive in the development of the round ball, according to Simon Chadwick.

"But all this turbulence has apparently severed this link between football and the real estate sector. Which raises questions about the future of Chinese football."

Damaged image

President Xi Jinping's dream of making his country a football "power" capable of organizing or even winning a World Cup has clearly withered in recent years.

Host country of choice in recent decades for sports competitions (F1, 2008 Summer Olympics, world championships in athletics, basketball), China also sees its ambitions in this area being called into question by its Covid strategy.

With the exception of the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing, organized in February-March in a health bubble, China has canceled or postponed almost all the international sporting events it was to host since the start of the epidemic.

The Asian Games in Hangzhou (east) have just been postponed.

And uncertainty hangs over the World Cup of football clubs, not formally canceled but which the country was to organize in 2021.

Aerial view of the Hangzhou stadium, one of the enclosures dedicated to the postponed Asian Games, April 1, 2022 STR AFP / Archives

"China had a reputation as a country you could count on to organize a sporting event. But it has been undermined," said William Bi.

President Xi's footballing ambitions have also been relegated to the background behind economic concerns, judge Bo Li, professor of sports management at Miami University (United States).

"Hosting a World Cup is no longer the main priority of Chinese leaders today," he said.

© 2022 AFP