A soccer mystery: Why mighty China fails at the world’s biggest sport

In April, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited a company that makes humanoid robots. There he floated an idea to fix the country’s woeful men’s soccer team.

“Can we have robots join the team?” Xi was quoted as saying on the website of Zhiyuan Robotics.

It might be too late. China will be out of World Cup qualifying if it fails to beat Indonesia today. Even a victory may only delay the departure.

What’s the problem? China has 1.4 billion people, the globe’s second largest economy and won 40 Olympic gold medals last year in Paris to tie the United States. Why can’t it find 11 elite men’s soccer players?

How soccer explainsa bit of China

The government touches every aspect of life in China. That top-down control has helped China become the largest manufacturer of everything from electronics to shoes to steel.

It has tried to run soccer, but that rigid governance hasn’t worked.

“What soccer reflects is the social and political problems of China,” Zhang Feng, a Chinese journalist and commentator, tells The Associated Press. “It’s not a free society. It doesn’t have the team-level trust that allows players to pass the ball to each other without worrying.”

Zhang argues that politics has stalled soccer’s growth. And there’s added pressure since Xi’s a big fan and has promised to resuscitate the game at home. Footbal is a world language with its “own grammar,” says Zhang, and China doesn’t speak it.

“In China, the more emphasis the leader places on soccer, the more nervous the society gets, the more power the bureaucrats get, and the more corrupt they become,” Zhang adds.

Dream – or nightmare?

After China defeated Thailand 2-1 in 2023, Xi joked with Srettha Thavisin, the Thai prime minister at the time. “I feel luck was a big part of it,” Xi said.

The consensus is clear. China has too few quality players at the grass roots, too much political interference from the Communist Party, and there’s too much corruption in the local game.

Wang Xiaolei, another prominent Chinese commentator, suggests that soccer clashes with China’s top-down governance and the emphasis on rote learning.

“What are we best at? Dogma,” Wang wrote in a blog last year. “But football cannot be dogmatic. What are we worst at? Inspiring ingenuity, and cultivating passion.”

Football is bigger than China

The latest chapter in China’s abysmal men’s soccer history was a 7-0 loss last year to geopolitical rival Japan.

“The fact that this defeat can happen and people aren’t that surprised — despite the historical animosity — just illustrates the problems facing football in China,” says Cameron Wilson, a Scot who has worked in China for 20 years and written extensively about the game there.

China has qualified for only one men’s World Cup. That was 2002 when it went scoreless and lost all three matches. Soccer’s governing body FIFA places China at No. 94 in its rankings — behind war-torn Syria and ahead of No. 95 Benin.

For perspective: Iceland is the smallest country to reach the World Cup. Its latest population estimate is almost 400,000.

The website Soccerway tracks global football and doesn’t show a single Chinese player in a top European league. The national team’s best player is forward Wu Lei, who played for three seasons in Spain’s La Liga for Espanyol. The club’s majority owner in Chinese.

The 2026 World Cup will have a field of 48 teams, a big increase on the 32 in 2022, yet China still might not make it.

China will be eliminated from qualification if it loses to Indonesia. Even if it wins, China must also beat Bahrain on June 10 to have any hope of advancing to Asia’s next qualifying stage.

An outsider views Chinese football

Englishman Rowan Simons has spent almost 40 years in China and gained fame doing television commentary in Chinese on English Premier League matches. He also wrote the 2008 book “Bamboo Goalposts.”

China is benefiting from reforms over the last decade that placed soccer in schools. But Simons argues that soccer culture grows from volunteers, civil society and club organizations, none of which can flourish in China since they are possible challengers to the rule of the Communist Party.

“In China at the age of 12 or 13, when kids go to middle school, it’s known as the cliff,” he says. “Parents may allow their kids to play sports when they’re younger, but as soon as it comes to middle school the academic pressure is on — things like sport go by the wayside.”

To be fair, the Chinese women’s team has done better than the men. China finished runner-up in the 1999 Women’s World Cup but has faded as European teams have surged with built-in expertise from the men’s game. Spain won the 2023 Women’s World Cup. China was knocked out early, battered 6-1 by England in group play.

China has been successful targeting Olympic sports, some of which are relatively obscure and rely on repetitive training more than creativity. Olympic team sports like soccer offer only one medal. So, like many countries, China focuses on sports with multiple medals. In China’s case it’s diving, table tennis and weightlifting.

“For young people, there’s a single value — testing well,” says Zhang, the commentator and journalist. “China would be OK if playing soccer were only about bouncing the ball 1,000 times.”

The face of corruption

Li Tie, the national team coach for about two years beginning in January 2020, was last year sentenced to 20 years in prison for bribery and match fixing. Other top administrators have also been accused of corruption.

The graft also extended to the domestic Super League. Clubs spent millions — maybe billions — on foreign talents backed by many state-owned businesses and, before the collapse of the housing boom, real-estate developers.

The poster child was Guangzhou Evergrande. The eight-time Super League champions, once coached by Italian Marcello Lippi, was expelled from the league and disbanded earlier this year, unable to pay off its debts.

Zhang says businessmen invested in professional soccer teams as a “political tribute” and cited Hui Ka-yan. The embattled real estate developer financed the Guangzhou Evergrande Football Club and used soccer to win favor from politicians.

Property giant Evergrande has amassed debts reported at $300 billion, reflective of China’s battered property segment and the general health of the economy.

“China’s failure at the international level and corruption throughout the game, these are all factors that lead parents away from letting their kids get involved,” says Simons, who founded a youth soccer club called China Club Football FC.

“Parents look at what’s going on and question if they want their kids to be involved. It’s sad and frustrating.” STEPHEN WADE & DIDI TANG, MDT/AP