The World Cup Fever is On for Chinese Emerging Markets

It’s World Cup time, so set your clock to early in the morning.

There is just no resisting the soccer fever. That is why I think soccer is the most international sport and the most watchable sport. There is nothing like watching your favourite team in action with a room of equally fanatic friends.

And don’t forget to bring along a cold beer!

This is where globalisation is at its best.

Hopeless sport

It’s hard to imagine, but Chinese people are soccer fanatics as well. They are as ‘crazy’ about soccer as anyone.

The problem is that it’s hard to root for Chinese soccer, because the national team is so bad. The Chinese national team only broke into the World Cup once, and didn’t stay in the tournament long.

Mind you, I’m strictly talking about the Chinese male soccer team, not the female team. The female team ranks 17th in the world, and has been among the top five in the world. It’s the male team that delivers nothing but disappointment.

There are a few counter-intuitive phenomena about Chinese soccer that are tough to understand.

Chinese athletes are pretty good at sports, especially after getting state government training for 10 or more years. China can usually score third place in the medal tables at the Olympics, after the United States and Russia.

But even though the same intense training and (much more) money is thrown at the soccer team, the result is terrible.

So the most asked question in China is, how is it that out of 1.35 billion people, China can’t create a team of capable soccer players? There are many theories to try to explain this, but I’m almost inclined to believe that soccer just isn’t in the Chinese genes.

Much like why Chinese are good at table tennis and badminton, there is just no explaining it. So, when there is a major breakthrough in sport, such as in tennis, there is a huge gain in national pride.

Another occurrence that is almost upsetting to Chinese sports fans is that Chinese soccer receives and makes much more money than any other sport in China.

This is because Chinese soccer has made itself into an industry, modelled after the European soccer leagues and tournaments. Chinese soccer, being the least deserving institution, has been able to capitalise on the popularity of soccer and continues to profit despite the curses and ridicules of the Chinese population.

Not to mention the huge amount of corruption in Chinese soccer.

The brewers

I can go on for hours about the poor state of Chinese soccer. But I won’t. More interesting, in a commercial sense, is the relationship between beer brewers and world soccer events.

When it comes time for big sporting events such as the World Cup, brewer sponsorship and advertising isn’t far behind.

Anheuser-Busch InBev [EBR:ABI], the world’s largest brewer with 25% of global market share, is at it again. A usual sponsor of the World Cup, Anheuser-Busch InBev has brought a Chinese brewer with it this time.

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