Catch a shooting star

Spanish soccer teams are looking to China to develop their fan base as the popularity of fixtures like El Clasico increases in Asia

China's national team may be absent from this summer's World Cup, but Chinese fans may still have the chance to cheer on a few of their favorite soccer stars - so long as they hail from Spain, that is.

La Liga, the top professional league in Spanish soccer, recently announced it would team up with Mango Entertainment, a media company based in the Hunan provincial capital of Changsha, to produce a 28-episode TV drama series during the World Cup this summer.

The production, titled Greenfield of Love, is scheduled to be aired through MGTV, an online video platform also based in Changsha.

"It will tell the stories behind the top football clubs," says Yang Jian, deputy president of Mango Entertainment. "It will also cover other themes like family, friendship, stardom and romance."

The upcoming series will follow the fortunes of three young soccer players trying to make it to the finals of the China Football Association Cup, the Chinese counterpart of Spain's Copa del Rey.

The series will be partially shot in Spain and will include many scenes shot at La Liga clubs and other wellknown international soccer venues.

Whether the locations will include Santiago Bernabeu stadium or Camp Nou is anyone's guess, as the TV production company has yet to release more details, but the storyline will explain how the three Chinese players' destinies became tied with Spain.

And, without naming names, Yang says that around 20 current and former stars from La Liga will take part in the series, including several "soccer legends".

"The show will give Chinese fans an insight into the daily lives of the stars and a behind the scenes look at their training regimes," he says.

The TV series is just part of bigger plans La Liga has for China.

In late December last year, the 270th edition of El Clasico - a fiercely contested derby between Spanish archrivals Real Madrid and FC Barcelona - was held at Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid, where the away team from Barcelona defeated its opponent 3-0.

And, in an unprecedented move, the match had been arranged to kick off at 8 pm Beijing time, a peak viewing slot for millions of Chinese soccer fans who had previously been used to staying up past midnight to watch the famous fixture. Former FC Barcelona player and French international Eric Abidal also visited Shanghai to celebrate the soccer fiesta with Chinese soccer fans.

The matches are broadcast live in China via the online sports platform PPTV. La Liga viewers normally pay 1 yuan (0.15 US cents; 0.13 euros; ￡0.11) to watch a single match, but this was raised to 12 yuan for the most recent El Clasico in a bid to control a surge in traffic to the website's servers.

In October, 2016, La Liga partnered with Shanghai-based Activation Group to found La Liga Club in Shanghai, the organization's first official fan club in China, and its first localized branch outside of Spain.

"We want to get closer to the fans, not only in Shanghai but the whole country. And we want them to be more engaged in our culture," Sergi Torrents, general manager of La Liga in China, tells China Daily in an interview.

Over the past few years, the booming Chinese Super League has attracted many top-level international players, helping to pull Chinese soccer out of a slump. And now the promising outlook in China is making Torrents more confident that they will win over more fans of La Liga.

"The growth of the Chinese Super League is unstoppable," he says. "I've been living in China since 2004, and of course the quality of local competition and people's interest in soccer over the past decade have become much higher.

"For people everywhere, whether they are in Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou, their home teams are, of course, local. People here in Shanghai may support Shenhua or SIPG, but we want their second teams to come from Spain."

As well as promoting La Liga, Torrents' organization is also attempting to foster a more positive atmosphere for soccer to develop in China as a whole. And running training camps is one of the most effective ways to influence future generations over the long term.

Under the framework of La Liga Club, academies were set up in Shanghai and Beijing in 2017 to nurture talented players aged between 4 and 15 years old using coaches from the Spanish league and assistants from China.

Schools in eastern Anhui province will be included in the training program this year, and the project will be rolled out to other provinces in China in the near future, Torrents says.

But for many Chinese fans, the Premier League in England probably remains their first choice when it comes to domestic soccer leagues in Europe.

This fact is reflected in their online followings. For example, the Sina Weibo account of FC Barcelona had 5.72 million followers by the end of 2017, compared with Real Madrid's 2.99 million. By contrast, Manchester United from the Premier League had 9.21 million followers, while Manchester City had 8.23 million. But the Spanish duo still had more followers than many other English heavyweights, like Chelsea and Liverpool.

And Torrents has high hopes for developing the popularity of Spanish teams.

"The English Premier League moved into the Asian market 15 to 20 years ago," Torrents says.

"We may have joined the market later, but we are catching up very quickly. The incredible fan base of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona is at a different level because there are no other ties quite like El Clasico anywhere else."

It was estimated by La Liga that about 650 million people from all around the world watched the broadcast of El Clasico in December. By comparison, the UEFA Champions League final in 2013, one of the most viewed soccer finals in the history of the Champions League, attracted 360 million viewers.

And, as Torrents points out, there are many more successful teams in La Liga other than the two famous rivals looking to develop links with China. Teams such as Valencia CF, Atletico Madrid and Sevilla FC also hope to increase their fan base in the country.

"We'll highlight the weekly games to show other aspects of the competition," he says.

Steve Lau, founder of Activation Group, believes the La Liga Club does not just have to appeal to football fans, but also it encapsulates the lifestyle and spirit of young people in general.

"La Liga is not just about football," Lau says. "It is also a form of entertainment that attracts a wide range of people. The events can nurture positive energy in local communities and encourage young people to pursue their dreams."

wangkaihao@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 01/12/2018 page18)