No quick fix for China Super League

BEIJING, June 8 (Reuters) ''Owen'' is a barman at a western themed restaurant in Beijing and a huge fan of soccer who adopted his English name in honour of England striker Michael.

The 25-year-old is exactly the sort of fan that the Chinese Super League (CSL) needs to attract if it is to return to the days of the late 1990s when the country's grounds were packed and the sport looked set to explode.

Owen took a break from a kick-around with his workmates on a sweltering afternoon in Chaoyang Park to talk about domestic soccer.

His opinions would not make easy reading for the CSL or Chinese Football Association (CFA).

''The players are very bad, they're not professional,'' he told Reuters. ''I sometimes watch Chinese football but it sends me to sleep ... they should sack all the CFA officials.'' Owen is not alone in his low opinion of the league, which is currently in the middle of a two-week break for China's tour of the US and the East Asian Champions Cup.

A CSL team owner last year pithily summed up the league's problems as: ''match throwing, gambling, corruption, biased reporting, strikes, rude crowds, violence, drugs, prostitution, debts, giving up, falling levels and the failure to qualify for the World Cup''.

The CSL knows it faces an uphill battle to restore the name of the domestic top flight, where average crowds have dropped from 23,000 in 2000 to 10,000 last year.

''First we must improve the level of the football,'' CSL general secretary Lang Xiaonong told the International Football Arena (IFA) conference in Beijing last month.

''We must make it more exciting and more entertaining for fans. Frankly speaking, in 1996 and 1997 the football wasn't that good but we had a lot of fans and a lot of advertising.

''But at that time we had not opened up the football industry to the outside world so fans did not know much about the high level of European football.'' That is not the case anymore and European football is very popular in China, with page after page of coverage devoted to it in sports newspapers.

Matches are shown live on national television and Manchester United, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Liverpool will all play in greater China this year, while Chelsea are planning a trip in 2008.

Lang said the CSL generated 930 million yuan in revenue last year, with sponsorship accounting for 72 per cent of the total and ticket sales a paltry 4.5 per cent.

Nine clubs were profitable, while six made a loss, he added.

If Lang had stuck around after making his speech, he might have benefited from the experience of others at the IFA convention who have faced similar problems.

AMERICAN LESSONS Timothy Leiweke, president of the company which owns David Beckham's new club LA Galaxy, thought the CSL could learn from the experience of Major League Soccer (MLS).

''We're not that far apart,'' he told Reuters. ''Just four or five years ago, we were struggling ... and we had to revamp our thinking and our philosophy a bit.

''I think they are very, very similar to where we were five years ago when we had to make difficult decisions regarding the league. They'll fix this league and make it real popular.'' Leiweke said key steps included clubs owning their own stadiums -- just one of the 15 CSL clubs do at present -- and tying up rights so if foreign clubs want to tour the territory, they have to go through the league.

Tom Bender, a marketing and communications expert with the German Bundesliga, said financial transparency, licensing and strict rules applied evenly -- regardless of the size of the club -- were vital to establishing credibility with fans.

''Trust and reliability -- people want to believe in the league, this is my team and whatever happens everything will work,'' he said.

''You have to take it very seriously, you have to make them believe.'' China has found it hard to eradicate the memory of the 2003 ''black whistle'' scandal, which resulted in one of the country's top referees being jailed for 10 years for taking tens of thousands of dollars in bribes.

Owen, at least, does not think matches are fixed anymore.

''The players are not good enough actors to do that,'' he said, to laughter from his colleagues.

Bender also said that identification with the clubs was also vital for the health of a league.

Tellingly, neither Owen nor his friends, all sports fans and Beijing natives in their 20s, were able to name a single current Beijing Guoan player.

REUTERS TB VV1548