🇨🇳 Jiangsu Suning FC (China)

Jiangsu Suning FC (China)

I’ve always been interested in Asian football without ever really watching it. The Asian countries are so big and hugely populated that I always wondered why none of the nations from that part of the world could mount a serious challenge when it came to the World Cup? The only one time that I can think of an Asian country do so was in 2002, when the World Cup was hosted by Japan and South Korea. South Korea of course made it all the way to the semi-finals, only to be beaten by Germany, 1-0. But they are one of the smaller nations in Asia, yet they are probably one of the better countries to play football. I’m thinking more about China, a country that boasts a population of more than 1.4 billion people. Surely, they should be able to get eleven men together and compete at the highest level of any sport, not just football? Alas, the Chinese have, the last few years, tried to break into that market with the emergence of the Chinese Super League. They have thrown money at whoever will take it to come over and entertain their citizens and to promote the game of football in that part of the world. But under all the money and positivity that is coming out of China with regards football, they have still had their fair share of clubs disappear. Yes, the Chinese are no strangers to having a ‘Forgotten Football Club’. In fact, I could have picked out hundreds from a list I found but ended up researching one club that caught my eye. I don’t really know why they did. Their name doesn’t stand out although their crest is rather colourful. They did have a long history in the Chinese football league though, 63 years in total to be exact, both in a semi-professional and professional capacity. They can be known by a few names, Jiangsu Football Club, Jiangsu Sainty FC or more recently Jiangsu Suning FC. This is their story.

The original Jiangsu Football club was founded in April1958 as just an amateur, provincial team, by the local government at time. Their first competitive competition they took part in was the 1959 Chinese National Games, the first time the event took place under the People’s Republic of China. The club finished twelfth in the games. In 1960, the club joined the top tier of Chinese football and finished 19^th out of 25 clubs, winning only three games, drawing four and losing seven. The next season saw the club finish tenth, but this was not an improvement from the previous season as they only played seven games that season, winning none, drawing three and losing four. The 1962 season saw the club finish 19^th again, winning six games, drawing none and losing eleven. By the 1963 season, the league had expanded to 39 clubs and the Chinese Football Association decided to trim it down to just twenty for the following year. Jiangsu came 7^th in their respective group, relegating them from the league. They did not participate in the 1964 season at all. They did remerge in 1965 to play in the second tier, where they once again finished 7^th in their respective group, But Chinese football would have to be stopped for several years after that due to the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

It wasn’t until 1973 that the football resumed, and Jiangsu took their place in the top tier once again, finishing eleventh. Playing 19 games, winning ten, drawing four and losing five. Playing more games in the 1974 season, (22 games) the club finished 21^st that season, winning eleven, drawing two and losing nine. In 1976 they finished a respectable 9^th and in 1977 the club finished 15^th. But it was to be a disastrous season in 1978, when they finished 14^th and found themselves relegated to the second tier, where they remained for quite some time. It would be a full decade before Jiangsu would find themselves back in the top tier. The 1987 season in the second tier ended with them finishing 5^th and securing promotion, only to be relegated the following year in 1988 back down to the second tier after finishing 14^th, winning just six games, drawing five and losing nine that season.

It wasn’t until 1994 when the club would be involved in yhe top tier of Chinese football again. This time it would be a different league. After winning the 1992 second division title, the club were guaranteed a place in the newly formed Chinese Jia-A League. Joining the league saw the club undergo a name change, and where now known as Jiangsu Maint. But that season saw the club struggle on the field, finishing bottom of the league in 12 position, winning only one game all season, drawing eight and losing thirteen. It resulted in the club being relegated to the Chinese First Division, but also saw the club struggle off the field with the club struggling financially. They were helped by different companies in the local area and managed to stay afloat, but did not manage to avoid relegation to the third tier of Chinese football when they finished bottom of the Chinese First Division in the 1996 season, managing only one win all season, drawing seven and losing fourteen.

However, their stay in the third tier didn’t last long and they won promotion straight away, winning the title. They won seventeen games, drawing eleven and only losing three games all season. They remained in the Chinese First Division for some time, even undergoing another name change. On the 7^th January, 2000, the club changed its name to Jiangsu Sainty after the club had been taken over by the Jiangsu Sainty Group. This proved to be an ill-faith move as the club were embroiled in a bribery scandal. Numerous players and officials at the club were said to have been bribed to lose a match against Chengdu Wuniu on the 6^{th of} October 2001. The match finished 4-2 to Chengdu but foul play was found out and sanctions were brought in too those involved. The Chinese FA also stepped in and made Jiangsu re-apply for a league license the following year. The club got their license on the promise that they would clean up the club of any corruption. On the field the club would remain in the Chinese First Division for years to come until the appointment of Pei Encai. The Chinese manager guided the club to the Chinese League One title in 2008, topping the league by sixteen points, winning twenty-four, drawing two and losing three games that season. They were also helped by the goals from the Brazilian strike partnership of Magno Ferreira (15 goals) and Marcio Barros (13 goals). Tan Si, the Chinese striker, also chipped in with ten goals.

Their first season back in the Chinese Super League saw the club finish a respectable 10^th out of 16 clubs. However, that season was marred by match fixing which saw the clubs who finished 7^th, Chengdu Blades and 9^th Guangzhou GPC relegated. The 2010 season was much the same for Jiangsu Sainty, finishing one place lower than the previous season in 11^th out of 16, winning eight, drawing eleven and losing eleven. They did pick up the Chinese Super League Fair play award that season. The next season saw the club managed by Serbian born, Dragan Okuka. The club saw an immediate improvement and finhsed 4^th in the table that season, missing out on qualifying for the Asian Champions League by just three points. Their success that season was mainly down to their strikers, Romanian Cristian Danalache, who scored thirteen that season and Serbian striker Aleksandar Jevtic who scored eleven.  The 2012 proved to be even better, with club finishing 2^nd, just four points behind title winners, Guangzhou Evergrande. The two clubs recorded the highest attendance of the season, with 65,769 people watching a 1-1 draw at the Nanjing Olympic Sports Centre, the home of Jiangsu Sainty. The club had finally qualified for the Asian Champions League and striker Cristian Danalache topped the goalscoring charts with twenty-three goals that season.

The 2013 season saw the club compete in their first Asian Champions League. They were drawn in Group E with South Korean side, FC Seol, Thailand side, Buriram United FC, and Japanese side, Vegalta Sendai. They played their first match on February 26^th, 2013, against FC Seol, losing heavily 5-1 at the Seol World Cup Stadium in front of 6,231 people. Their first home match of the competition saw them play out a 0-0 draw against Japanese side Vegalta Sendai in front of 35,756 on the 12^{th of} March 2013. They finally got their first win in the competition, beating Thailand side, Buriram United 2-0 in front of their own fans on the 2^nd of April. Goals from Lu Bofel and Sun Ke in the first half were enough to put the Chinese side in poll position to qualify out of the group. But on the 10^th of April in the return leg, Buriram got their revenge. This time it was the Thailand side who won 2-0, with goals coming from Suchao and Charyl at the New T-Mobile Stadium. Juangsu lost their net game to FC Seol at home, 2-0 and despite beating Vegalta Sendai in their final game, 2-1, they were knocked out of the competition by goals scored. Buriram United had scored more and went through with table topping FC Seol.

Their domestic form took a hit, with the Asian Champions League journey taking it’s toll, with the club 13^th, only one point out of the relegation places. The 2014 season saw a slight improvement with the club finishing 8^th. It also saw the club reach the Chinese FA Cup final for the first time, where they lost out to Shandong Luneng Taishan over two legs. They lost the first leg, 4-2 at the Jinan Olympic Sports Centre Stadium. Despite winning the 2^nd leg at home 2-1, thanks to goals from Antar and Eleilson, they lost out 5-4 on aggregate.

It was in the 2015 that the club once again saw a name change, this time to Jiangsu Guoxin-Sainty, due to the merger that had happened back in 2011 when Jiangsu Sainty International Group merged into the Guoxin Group, forming the Jiangsu Guoxin Group. The Guoxin Group effectively became the owners of the club. Back on the field, the club finished 9^th place but qualified for the Asian Champions league once again due to their success in the Chinese FA Cup. The club had won their first major trophy, beating Shanghai Greenland Shenhua 1-0 over two legs. The first leg, which was played at the Nanjing Olympic Sports Centre was drawn 0-0 as was the second leg, played at the Hongkou Football Stadium in Shanghai. The final was decided in extra time when Brazilian born, Croatian international scored in the 110 minutes of extra time to give Jiangsu and their manager, Romanian, Dan Petrescu the trophy. The club would ply in the final of the Chinese FA cup the following season, but wouldn’t be as successful, losing to Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao over two legs, in the final. The first leg ended 1-1 while the second, played at the home of Jiangsu, ended 2-2 meaning that Guangzhou won the cup on away goals.

The club was on the rise, and new owners and investment from the Suning Group saw the club change their name again to Jiangsu Suning. It was a huge move that saw the club become one of the wealthiest in Chinese football. It saw them attract players like Brazilian and Chelsea midfielder, Ramires They competed in the 2016 Asian Champions League, drawing South Korean side, Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, Japanese side FC Tokyo and Vietnamese side Becamex Binh Duong FC in Group E. Once again, the Chinese club failed to get out of the group, finishing third below Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors and FC Tokyo. However, their domestic form didn’t suffer this time around as they finished 2^nd in the 2016 Chinese Super League season and qualified once again for the ACL. Brazilian Alex Teixeira finished the clubs top goalscorer that season with eleven goals. It proved to be third time lucky for Jiangsu Suning as they finally qualified for the knockout stages, topping their group that consisted of South Korean side, Jeju United, who came second, Australian side Adelaide United and Japanese side Gamba Osaka. But the last 16 was the furthest they would go and it was another Chinese club, Shanghai SIPG that would knock them out, winning 5-3 on aggregate, (2-1 in the home leg and 3-2 in the away leg). Jiangsu Suning failed to impress in the Chinese Super League that season and finished 12^th in the 2017 season, winning seven games, drawing eleven and losing twelve.

Without Champions League football distracting them in the 2018 season, the club improved their domestic form, finishing 5^th that season, but missing out on qualification for the 2019 Asian Champions League by five points. The 2019 season saw them go one better and finish 4^th place, but unfortunately for the club only the top three were awarded qualification to the Asian Champions League that season due to Tianjin Tianhai leaving the league. But the best was yet to come from Jiangsu Suning and in 2020 the club finally won their first Chinese Suer League title. In a changed format, where the season was split into a championship play-off round with the top four clubs from the regular season competing for the title in the end, Jiangsu Suning beat rivals Guangzhou Evergrande 2-1 in the final, with goals from Eder and Alex Teixeira securing their first title. It seemed that the club, who have had so many name changes, and so many ups and downs over the years, where finally going to become a dominant force in Chinese football. However, that was not the case, and the writing was on the wall when the club had to make another name change on February 1^st 2021 when it became Jiangsu FC, leaving out the Suning. It was said that this was done because of new regulations set by the Chinese FA that each club such have a neutral name and not the name of a sponsor. But by the end of the month the club had been dissolved, including its youth and women’s team. The parent company, Suning Holding Group, announced the decision with immediate effect, stating financial difficulties as the reason.

I spoke to Xiaoou, a Chinese football fanatic about Jiangsu and Chinese football. He was the man who told me to look at the story of Jiangsu, stating it was one of Chinese footballs most interesting stories and he wasn’t wrong.

The sudden dissolving of the club, after just winning the Chinese Super League is a strange one. They were owned by the Suning Holdings Group, who just ceased operations just three months after winning the league. Was this a surprise to Chinese football fans?

Xiaoou: Fairly. First of all nobody expected Suning, a very well known electronics retailer, would suffer so much financial distress that would wipe the football team out, especially as Inter Milan, also owned by Suning, is still coping fairly well. Then as you mentioned this is the club just won the top flight. But COVID changed a lot of things and government policy diverged from history and became very tough on indebtedness, which was a big problem for Suning Group.

The club had the likes of Dan Petrescu and Fabian Capello manage them at one point, so they were able to attract big names at the club. Why was that? Money? Reputation?

Xiaoou: The team is always fairly competitive in the league, having been on top table 45 minutes before the end of the season in 2012, The scouting network was decent. The Inter connection certainly helps. Money is sufficient is not always abundant, especially before Suning came in. Nanjing is a city foreigners can find a familiar life, unlike some of other cities.

Doing my research on Jiangsu throughout the years, I found that there were a few clubs in China that had dissolved over the years. Is this a problem in China? And if so what do you think the reason is for it?

Xiaoou: Teams dissolve general because the money ran out. Football is never a profitable business and outright dissolution generally happen in lower tiers of the league where the investors have a finite reservoir of patience. I don’t think it is so much a problem as a symptom of lack of real long-term plans. Most people get into football for a quick buck.

Chinese football hit the headlines over the past few years with it attracting big name players to the Chinese Super League, offering a lot of money in wages. People in Europe in seemed to feel it was a cheap way to build a football league. How did Chinese fans see it? And how did you personally see it? Because Chinese football has been around for years before hasn’t it.

Xiaoou: It all started with Evergrande didn’t it. They came at an opportune time where the reputation of football world in China generally was at a low in late 2000s. They built their success with money and surprisingly good professionalism where the coaching staff is left to do their thing without much interference from the management (Lippi, and later Scolari, won a World Cup already of course). I think I speak for most fans that expensive foreign players, at Evergrande at least, were making local players better. The thing with most of the copycats is that they didn’t build the coaching staff and other softer elements around their expensive players. Some of the teams were speculating they could curry political favours that is allegedly loved by Xi Jinping, the President. Most of them found it an easy way to skirt restrictions to do real estate deals where they have an excuse to grab land. A few businessmen were in it for personal egos.

The country China is so big and has a massive population, but it hasn’t done anything in regards the international stage of football. Can you see China making a big impact at a World Cup anytime soon? What are the reasons behind such a big country failing to qualify for the World Cup on so many occasions?

Xiaoou: The short answer is no haha. I’d be very, very, positively surprised if they can have a big impact on the international stage in the foreseeable future. And the reason is when we talk about population we all talk about country population. And the Chinese football population is more like 10000. If you compare it with Japan who have about a few million it is an extremely small talent pool. And the economist in me tells me that China is still a developing country relying on industrial investments to power the economy despite the overall size. The services and consumption economy is still very small so even in that regard there is just no good infrastructure to support the industry, so to speak, to develop (despite the fact that we are very good at hard infrastructure).

Can you tell me anything interesting about Jiangsu or Chinese football that the readers may not know?

Xiaoou:  (Shows me an article of the 2006 World Cup Qualifiers that China participated in)

China didn’t advance because they fucked up their own calculations regarding goal difference. Like in the last game they only realised they needed more goals at the 85^th minute. It was really comitragic.

Finally, who is the best Chinese player to ever play the game of football in your opinion?

Xiaoou: If we exclude Lee Wai Tong, who was born in 1905 and whose legend spread mostly by heresay, I daresay Zheng Zhi, who is coping with a barebone squad with Evergrande at the moment, is the benchmark to beat. Firstly he played in Europe at a decent level for a few years, which beats most of his competitors. And compared with Sun Jihai or Hao Haidong, who I think would be other greats to consider his good form last a good fifteen plus years, which is more than they could manage. Even you just think the real medals he won – twice Asian Champions League as captain, an Asia Player of the year (diluted as outland-playing players are no longer considered) and many league titles in the beginning and end of his career are beyond anyone else. Even though in terms of personal ability I think Jia Xiuquan came close as a fairly prolific goalscoring defender but he’s not there in terms of actual achievements.

 

I must admit, covering Jiangsu was a task and half, with the club undergoing so much change in its history, and then to just dissolve like that was truly bizarre. It was like they had reached their goal of winning that first title and that was it, they didn’t need to prove anything to anyone anymore. Their fans were just left with a gapping hole to fill.  Over 50’s years of a football club, gone just like that. It really does show that any club can become a ‘Forgotten Club’, even Premier League champions of a country. I don’t imagine it happens a lotaround the world, but it happened in China. Will they ever be back again? Who knows? They could just as easily re-form as quickly as they went, but probably under another name… again.