Sun Jihai says foreign coaches ‘only in China for the money’, damaging Chinese football
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Speaking to fellow former China international Liu Yue in an interview for Shanghai TV, Sun said the purpose was clear.
“Foreign coaches come to China for a very simple purpose, purely to make money, otherwise what are they coming for? Do they want to improve the level of Chinese football? I don’t think foreign coaches can bring immediate help to Chinese football.”
He was critical of the impact that this has had on the Chinese game, particularly coupled with the reliance on foreign players in attack.
“When our current Super League teams use foreign aid, most of them are given special privileges, so that they only need to attack and not defend. But this is not the case in modern football, and it should not be the case.”
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Sun said that this might win games but it is bad for the domestic game in the long term.
“It will only harm the local Chinese players. We always count on foreign aid to score goals in the league, but this makes us at a loss in the international competition.
“This is not the direction that football should develop. It will only make our Chinese football worse and worse.
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“We should pursue something, whether it is a Chinese coach or a foreign coach, whether it is a national team or a club, whether it is youth training or the first team, otherwise we will never see a scene where Chinese football can reach the World Cup.”
Sun also spoke of the foreign coaches that he had worked under during his career, with particular praise for Kevin Keegan at Manchester City.
While at the English Premier League club, he also played under Stuart Pearce and Sven-Goran Eriksson, who would later coach in the Chinese Super League with Guangzhou R&F and Shanghai SIPG.
Sun, the only Chinese player to be inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame, is now the vice-chairman of the Xinjiang Football Association and he praised the region for its football culture, history and talent pool.
