It might be too early to call it “normal,” but since Chinese investors went after the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers basketball squad in 2009, the latest news that a Chinese investment group is now looking to purchase Liverpool F.C. doesn’t seem all that surprising. Except for the little issue over the fact that it is the China Investment Corporation, a state-owned company established in 2007 under the Ministry of Finance using 1.55 trillion RMB. The corporation is charged with managing part of the country’s foreign reserves, and is one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds.

Kenneth Huang, point man for the potential purchase of Liverpool F.C. by the China Investment Corporation. Image from Shanghaiist.

The British press seems flustered at the prospect of having the financing arm of the Chinese government owning a football club. The BBC’s Beijing corespondent Chris Hogg cautioned the move by the CIC in an August 5 podcast. The Guardian questioned the decision by the CIC, calling a potential Liverpool purchase “the odd one out in the CIC investment portfolio,” given the group has invested in firms such as Coca-Cola, Apple and Motorala, but has no experience in sports teams.

According to the Telegraph, the investment group would be led by Kenneth Huang and his QSL Sports Limited company, both of which have been linked to purchasing a 15 percent stake in the Cleveland Cavaliers, bringing Tsingtao beer to the Cavs’ sports arena, as well as helping bring Yao Ming to the Houston Rockets and deals with the New York Yankees baseball organization. Huang and associate Guang Yang, executive vice president of Franklin Templeton Investments and chief investment officer of the China Life/Franklin Templeton Fund, would be in charge of day-to-day operations should Liverpool be bought, and the other Chinese investors involved in the CIC deal would have a more “passive” role in the team.

In 2009, when China Sports Review looked at the Cleveland Cavs deal with a group of Chinese investors, CSR championed Huang and the apparent front runner of the group, Albert Hung, one of the wealthiest businessmen in Hong Kong, for potentially ushering in a new era of sports investments into American athletic teams. Since then, the only attention the Cavs have received is the circus that surrounded LeBron James’ departure from the team to join the Miami Heat, and recently Shaquille O’Neal’s move to the Boston Celtics.

Even the NBA’s own reports downplayed the purchasing stake in the Cavs, and instead focused on Huang’s goals of investing more into the China Basketball Association. The Cleveland Cavaliers didn’t even bother to make it news for the organization, as it is not listed anywhere on the team’s official Web site that a Chinese company has a stake in the franchise. Tsingtao Beer is probably kicking themselves in the pants for investing in a team that’s seen its star players jump ship, and is now a Chinese beer company with exclusive distribution rights to … just another sports team in the “middle of nowhere” Ohio.

This isn’t to knock Huang, who seems to pop up in the news every few months with a potential sports deal that elicits even more raised eyebrows than the previous, particularly because China has a very limited history of investing in foreign sports teams, but I think Huang is the wrong person to focus on when talking about the potential Liverpool purchase.

It’s also naive and unnerving to see the British media challenge the CIC based on the fact that it has no previous experience in the sports world. Pardon me, Guardian’s Tania Branigan, but what is wrong with a fund that made a nearly 12 percent return on its 2009 investments now branching out into sports?

Lou Jiwei, current head of the CIC, China's former Vice Minister of Finance, and one of the country's most seasoned financial operators. Image from Time Magazine.

Maybe it’s as simple as saying CIC has a lot of money to throw around, Liverpool is in debt, and for all intents and purposes the CIC will bail them out. Maybe it has something to do with getting a foothold on a market that is currently undergoing a number of infrastructure projects — code words for serious money moving around — in preparation for the 2012 London Olympic Games. Or, given we’re looking at Liverpool, maybe it has something to do with the massive planning project recently approved for Liverpool, the largest in the United Kingdom, that will see 1.7 million square meters of the region developed. The not-for-profit Web site Merseyrail Extensions is currently documenting the expansion taking place in Liverpool, and it has managed to pull together several interesting developments — another code word for serious money moving around — taking place in Liverpool.

Given all that, I don’t have anything to back these assertions, but Lou Jiwei, China’s former vice minister of finance who now runs the CIC, just doesn’t look like a man that interested in soccer balls. In this case, the purchase of a sports franchise seems like the first step in creating a pipeline for Chinese investors into the United Kingdom, and more importantly “western Europe.”

— Zachary Franklin

There is no question that large, global sporting events can help change the image of a city. Governments use the spectacles as a means to redevelop or invest further in a city’s infrastructure. South Africa proposed a nine billion rand — or about 1.7 billion USD — budget on city infrastructure projects for next year’s World Cup. According to the Beijing Organizing Committee, the 2008 Olympic Games saw about 60 billion USD invested in city-wide infrastructure projects, which included new stadium venues for the sporting events.

Last week, the article “Sloppy Services Bode Ill for Guangzhou’s Asian Games,” which appeared on the Global Times and was reported by China Sport’s Review’s David Yang, noted that Guangzhou would spend approximately 29 billion on infrastructure throughout the city, and an additional 900 million USD on stadium construction and renovations, in preparation for the athletic events in 2010.

China continues to show willingness to play host to several international sporting events, as well as increasingly popular national athletic endeavors. As mentioned, there are the 16th Annual Asian Games in Guangzhou. The 2009 East Asian Games are currently taking place in Hong Kong until Dec. 13.

Nanjing, which bid and was eventually eliminated for consideration as the host city for the 2012 Youth Winter Olympic Games, is currently in the bidding process for the 2014 Youth Summer Olympic Games. Even animatronics is getting into the mix, as 2010 will also see Harbin play host to the Robot Games, where androids designed from more than 100 universities worldwide will compete.

Apparent in the infrastructure bubble that takes place in cities around China that are vying for the chance to host a major sporting competition is that chinks are beginning to arise in just how productive and profitable a host city can be in the years after the athletics have moved on. Just recently, China Daily reported the city of Harbin gave up on its plan to bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics, saying that a push by the People’s Republic to host a winter Olympic Games event was “premature.”

Beijing’s crown jewel of sporting events, the 2008 Olympic Games, cost a reported 400 billion RMB, with 12 venues constructed for the two-week event. A 2006 New York Times article titled “The China Syndrome” noted the original budget for the National Stadium was about 500 billion USD, yet the Bird’s Nest currently sits toiling just north of the city center.

Long-term use of Olympic venues has always been the Achilles heel of hosting the event, but in China’s case, where the country is taking on larger sporting events, when infrastructure includes new stadiums and sporting venues, what is happening to these places after the games have finished?

In January, USA Today reported the Bird’s Nest is still searching for a permanent tenant, has yet to hold a major sporting event, and there are doubts the stadium will ever recoup the 450 million USD the government spent to construct the architectural wonder.

According to an Oct. 2005 Reuters article, the budget for the 2005 China National Games held in Jiangsu province was roughly one-third of the 2008 Olympic Games spending, and the Nanjing Olympic Sports Stadium —constructed in 2002 and an integral part of the 2005 China National Games — according to the stadium’s official Web site is now used almost exclusively for local events.

chinaSMACK, which translates “hot topics” on Chinese Internet forums and Chinese news reports, reported that in addition to the myriad of scandals at the 11th National Games held in Shandong during the month of October, the total cost and construction for the event totaled 200 billion RMB, including the Jinan Olympic Sports Center, a 60,000-seat stadium that was the centerpiece of the National Games.

China Daily reported in 2008 that Harbin needed three more stadiums built — at a price tag of 370 million USD — for the 24 Winter Universiade, which featured 4,000 athletes from 50 countries. And the East Asia Games, according to the secretary of home affairs’ home page, saw renovations on the three stadiums in Hong Kong, costing about 240 million USD.

The question surrounding all these monumental athletic venues is who plays in them going forward? The China Basketball Association, the country’s most visible sport, lost 17 million USD overall during the last season, according to an Economist Intelligence Report released in October. The People’s Republic currently has no homegrown athletic teams in any sport that can fill stadiums to capacity on a weekly basis.

Both the National Basketball Association, Premier League and the National Football League have made attempts to bring games to China, but the results have been marginal: a few preseason NBA and Major League Baseball games, an outright rejection to ship Premier League games outside of Europe, and two cancellations by the NFL.

China’s sports powerhouse ambitions, while praiseworthy on the field, have yielded few positive results for long-term sporting events. Yes, major international competitions take time and planning, but China has the infrastructure in place to do more with its sporting venues,  and tying its infrastructure plans to major sporting events should draw continued usage for years after.

— Zachary Franklin

"Steve" Yue Wang enters his final year at Cumberland University where he will play both football and soccer.

“Steve” Yue Wang’s eyes light up when you talk football. He doesn’t have any favorite players or memorable moments, either from watching or playing. He can’t rattle off any statistics. He’s never really played the game. These are all things the average American has done if they’re into football.

But Wang isn’t American. He just knows he enjoys football.

“I know the game of soccer, but it isn’t worth it anymore,” says Wang. “I am tired of playing [soccer]. Football is so new, and it is just different.”

Wang, a senior at Cumberland University in Nashville, Tenn., has played soccer all his life. Soccer is what Wang has to do. He’s on a soccer scholarship, which has opened the doors for an education that includes double majoring in both business management and marketing. He holds a 3.7 overall GPA. He plays jazz and blues music in his free time. He picked the English name “Steve” because he says Ray Vaughn sounds like Yue Wang (pronounced like ‘u-way wang’), and he always enjoyed Stevie Ray Vaughn’s music.

But this is a story about what Wang wants to do: Become the first professional Chinese kicker in the National Football League. And to understand what Wang wants to do, it is essential to understand where he comes from and how he’s gotten to this point.

Soccer in the People’s Republic

Wang grew up in Tianjin, China — a city east of Beijing that has a population of 12 million — playing soccer since the age of 10. In China, like other countries around the world, if you are identified as an athlete, you are taught your sport. That’s not to say that Wang did not receive an education, he just played soccer everyday as if it were a job. By 1999, he had qualified for the Chinese junior national soccer team.

Wang has played soccer in every province in China, and in countries as far away as Brazil. In 2004, his coach suggested he try playing in Europe, the pinnacle of the soccer world. Wang was selected for a second division team in Portugal, but for whatever reason — which remains elusive for Wang to this day — he was denied a working visa and his opportunity to play soccer in Europe disappeared.

“Then, my coach suggested I stick with the amateur route of going to America by first attending college and then playing [soccer] in a league,” says Wang. “At least I’d have a degree.”

According to Wang, he was offered a scholarship by an NCAA Division-I school, but because he had not been recruited directly out of high school, he could not attend. Instead, he was recruited to Lindsey Wilson College, a small school in Columbia, Ky.

“I’d never been to America before,” says Wang. “Lindsey is a tiny college in Kentucky. The city is no more than 4,000 people. And it’s a dry county, which means no alcohol. They have an amazing soccer team; the whole team is international. But for me, soccer was beginning to seem old. I was getting tired.”

Finding Football in America

Lindsey Wilson has consistently made the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics soccer championship tournament over the past decade, including overall wins in the 2001-02 and 2005-06 seasons.

It was at Lindsey Wilson that Wang kicked his first football one day after soccer practice when a friend egged him on. “I’d seen football in college, but I thought it was stupid,” says Wang. “Football is about tackling; soccer is about using your skills with your feet. I liked kicking better. And as an outsider, football seemed violent.”

Yet, from that moment on, Wang was hooked to football. In his spare time, he’d head to the indoor basketball courts at Lindsey Wilson and, using the sides of the backboards as imaginary goal posts, would stand on the opposite end of the basketball court and kick the football “through the uprights.” Since no one else was around, he’d simply spin the football on its tip, give it a kick and watch it sail through the goal.

Wang transferred to Cumberland University after his freshman year, saying he couldn’t do the whole “small town thing” anymore. He continued to play soccer for Cumberland, but during his first few days on campus, Wang says he went over to the football coach’s office to see if he could walk on the team.

“He kind of didn’t bother with me, didn’t even look up from his desk,” says Wang of his visit. “He brushed me off, saying they already had six kickers. But I still had soccer.”

Instead, he’d practice along with another kicker from the football team, to the point where Wang says the football coaches refused to allow Wang on the football field or even practice with team balls. In 2008, Wang was named to the Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athletes list as a soccer player, along with making First Team All-TransSouth Conference.

But before getting his soccer accolades, Wang made a trip to Atlanta, to try out as a kicker for the Georgia Force, a team for the Arena Football League. Wang never knew if he’d end up getting recruited, as the league suspended its 2009 season. In April 2009, Wang attended the 6th Annual Aguiar Kicking Academy Pro Camp in Las Vegas to see if the NFL was a viable opportunity.

“Before the showcase on the last day — with coaches and scouts there to watch — I’d never kicked a football through the uprights with a snapper and a holder,” says Wang. “That whole process of snapping the ball threw me off. I wasn’t expecting it. I missed my first kick —the easiest one of the kicks we were expected to do. I made the rest.”

Wang was handed an NFL player contract, but was also told there were no guarantees he’d make a team. If he signed the paper, Wang would forfeit his eligibility to play soccer his senior year at Cumberland, dissolving his scholarship and a chances of obtaining a degree. The NFL career would have to wait.

“Preparing” for the NFL

He enters his senior year at Cumberland on an athletic high. He’s at the top of his soccer game, and more importantly, he’ll also be kicking for the Cumberland football team. “The football coach’s attitude completely changed after the NFL camp,” he says, laughing. “He told me, ‘We’re always looking for a good kicker.’”

At 28-years-old, Wang wants football. He understands he would be the first Chinese national to make a professional NFL team should he be selected. And he uses it like a selling point when he speaks.

“He can kick the snot out of the ball,” says Jeff Loucks, head coach of the men’s soccer team at Cumberland. “How many in the NFL can make a 60-yard field goal? Steve can do that. He has so much potential and so much upside.”

Wang says as a kicker you don’t need to be particularly attuned to all the other aspects of football. You don’t need to know formations, and according to Wang, you don’t need to understand how to play the game. Wang says you just have to kick the ball through the uprights. But before Wang can begin his career as a kicker, he might want to try on the uniform first. After all, he’s yet to fully suit up.

— Zachary Franklin