Professional Asian Football Leagues and the Global Market

• Date: 01 January 2016
• Published date: 01 January 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12112
• Author: Stefan Szymanski

Professional Asian Football Leagues and the

Global Market

Stefan SZYMANSKI†

University of Michigan

This paper considers the development potential for professional football (soccer) leagues in Asia.

This is set in the context of a global market where playing talent is easily bought and sold, and fans

are attracted by the highest quality of play which they mostly consume via screens. The paper

highlights the relative underdevelopment of Asian leagues given the size and growing economic

power of the Asian markets, and suggests some ways in which this might change in the future.

Key words: football, professional league, soccer, sport

JEL codes: Z21, Z28

1. Introduction

Fifty years ago, if you were a supporter of Liverpool Football Club living in Asia, and you

wanted to know how they had fared in the FA Cup played at Wembley in England, your

best bet would have been to look in your local newspaper the following day (they beat

Leeds 2-1 in 1965). Twenty-five years ago or so, in much of Asia you would still have

needed to consult the newspaper, but in some countries at least you probably could have

watched it live on TV, possibly in a local bar (they beat Sunderland 2-0 in 1992). In 2015,

Liverpool lost the semi-final to Aston Villa, a game that you could easily have watched

live on your mobile phone throughout most of Asia. Of course, you might not be that

bothered, since the FA Cup is not the prestigious tournament it was even 25 years ago,

and Liverpool fans care much more about qualifying for the Champions League, which

did not exist a quarter of century ago. But the point is, 50 years ago there were manyfans

of English football to be found in Asia even though they had almost no opportunity to

watch the games played. Today in Asia, there are still many fans of English football, and

added to that there are fans of Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga and Italy’s Serie A,

not to mention the pan-European Champions League.

Fifty years ago, most Asian nations did not havea professional football league of their

own. Now most do,but still the focus of fan interest in Asia is directed primarily at Euro-

pean clubs. This, I think, raises a question of great interest to economists and marketers

alike. Is professional football a kind of business in which first mover advantages persist?

Or, given the intense demand for professional football in Asia, will local Asian leagues

evolve which can challenge the dominance of the European leagues? What factors hold

back the development of football leagues in Asia, and what lessons are to be learned from

the experience of other sports?

†Correspondence: Stefan Szymanski, Universityof Michigan, 3118 Observatory Lodge, 1402 Wash-

ington Heights, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2013, USA. Email: stefansz@umich.edu

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doi: 10.1111/aepr.12112 Asian Economic Policy Review (2016) 11, 16–38

© 2016 Japan Center for Economic Research16

This paper starts with a review of the development of professional football world-

wide. The evolution of Asian leagues is then described. The next section looks briefly at

developments in other sports. The last section discusses prospects for future growth in

Asia.

2. The Development of Professional Football

2.1 History and structure

The rules of the modern game of Association Football (henceforth football) were written

down in London in 1863 by the newly created Football Association (FA), the first

national football federation. The FA accepted professional players in 1885 and the first

professional football league in the world, the Football League, was founded in England in

1888. The founder members consisted of only 12 teams, but a second division was added

in 1892, and following the interruption of World War One, expanded to four divisions

with 88 clubs in total in 1923 an organizational structure which remains almost

unchanged to the present day.1Football’s popularity spread rapidly, and by 1900 the

game was widely played in Europe and South America. The Hong Kong Football Asso-

ciation was founded in 1914. It is interesting to note that while some sports which devel-

oped in Britain, such as cricket and rugby,to this day remain associated in most peoples’

eyes with British culture, this is much less true of football. Across the world, Germans,

Italians, Spaniards, Argentinians,Brazilians, and so on have developed their own football

culture which owes little to the game’s British origins. Indeed, arguably it is only in this

way the football has been able to develop into the world’s game.2

Organizationally, however, it took some considerable time for other countries to

catch up with the British lead. Most European and South American nations had estab-

lished a national federation by 1900, and Fédération Internationale de Football Associa-

tion (FIFA), the world governing body, was founded in 1904. In those early years, teams

from England and Scotland regularly toured the world, and typically notched up sub-

stantial victories. British players and British coaches were in high demand around the

world at least until the 1950s. While there weresome early professional leagues in Europe

– Italy and the Netherlands in 1898 – most were founded between the wars (Spain 1929,

Argentina 1931, France 1933, Portugal 1935), and some national leagues are remarkably

recent (Germany 1963, Brazil 1971).

League development took place largely on national lines, a consequence of a gover-

nance structure formed around national federations. Each nation tended to establish a

hierarchy of leagues, connected through the system of promotion and relegation. In

England there developed a significant degree of rivalry between the national federation

(the FA) and the Football League; even though the League acknowledged the sovereignty

of the FA, it still sought to maintain a clear demarcation of powers and to sustain a

degree of autonomy. In most other countries, however, the links between the national

league and governing body were very strong, often consisting of largely the same people.

This connection has generally been strengthened by a shared concern over the success of

Stefan Szymanski Professional Asian Football Leagues

© 2016 Japan Center for Economic Research 17