Will Gareth Bale Join Jiangsu Suning FC this summer?
It’s the hottest day in Nanjing while there are two important news makes the local football fans more exciting than the weather: Cristiano Ronaldo has arrived Nanjing with his Juventus teammates preparing the ICC against Inter Milan, while the transfer rumor said Gareth Bale would leave Real Madrid and join Jiangsu Suning FC.
We have to admit it is obvious Suning does have the money to get Bale and pay for his sky-high salary, just like they did in season 15/16. In that season, Suning brought Alex Teixeira (Shakhtar Donetsk), Ramires (Chelsea), Chao Gu (HZ Greentown), Jiawei Yang (SH Shenxin) and Pengfei Xie (HZ Greentown) for 86.29M in total, not to mention their reforcement in the mid-season:Jo & Sainsbury.
Some of our reader maybe live in other counties never know about Suning Group. So, I quote the introduction from Suning official website:
Founded in 1990, Suning Holdings Group is one of the leading commercial enterprises in China, with two public companies in China and Japan. In 2017, the company was ranked second in the top 500 privately-owned enterprises in China, with annual revenue of 81.3 billion USD (557.9 billion RMB). With its mission of “Leading the Ecosystem Across Industries by Creating Elite Quality of Life for All”, Suning has gone from strength to strength, expanding its core business through eight vertical industries: Suning.com, Logistics, Financial Services, Technology, Real Estate, Media & Entertainment, Sports, and Investment. Suning.com was listed on the Fortune Global 500.
Suning Sports is China’s leading Sports Industry Group, with a mission to offer the best-in-class products and services to sports fans. Its goals are to harness every resource in the ecosystem and to develop an elite international sports group. Areas of expertise include Club Operation Management, Sports Media Operation, Youth Training, Sports Copyright Operation, Sports Commercial Operation, and Sports Real Estate Development.
Suning Sports owns three football clubs: Jiangsu Suning Football Club, Jiangsu Suning Ladies Football Club, and F.C. Internazionale Milano. PP Sports, owned by Suning Sports, is the first sports media platform in China to own the exclusive copyrights of Europe’s Big Five Football Leagues: the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1. PP Sports also owns the copyrights of other major sports events such as CFA, CSL, AFC, and WWE.
In many opinions, Suning has the motivation to sign Bale. Firstly, Bale is really a good winger, he still could shine in most of the game in this planet when he is healthy; And also, Real Madrid could let him go without transfer fee due to his high salary in future years; Meanwhile, it is a great opportunity for Suning to spread their companies to the whole world, not only in football world, but also in real world, I mean it is a great advertisement to EU countries especially UK; at last, Beijing side will be flattered by Suning’s big name signing, since it show the prosperous of Modern China.
Nevertheless, we still have many questions to this transfer rumor.
The news came out yesterday midnight European time, no matter Spanish or Real Madrid team (in Huston) is sleeping at that moment. Based on Zidane’s pre-match talk, everyone knows Bale is going to leave in a few days. The news needs breaking stories, and every media began their imaginations. BBC sports, one of my favorite, prefer him to move to Liverpool, an ideal transfer, the others then, has another choice for stories: CSL teams.
As we all know CSL is built up with money and a good place for the players older. One of the biggest club in CSL links to Bale one week ago is Shanghai Shenhua, which signed Drogba, Guarin & C.Teves in the past. But with the new Korean Coach Choi, they brought a new SC Shin-uk Kim, and Italian winger Stephan El Shaarawy. These two enforcements, alongside with Caption G.Moreno and Odion Ighalo, there is no place for Bale now. Then, it came to another big club Beijing Guoan, their attacking midfield playmaker Jonathan Viera has been confirmed out of pitch for 6–12weeks. As we talked in last report, Guoan has a very strong midfield while weak in the both wings, the lack of width always make them fall in to field combat just like Jiangsu did last Sunday. Being a state-owned enterprise, Guoan also has great fortune, enough to tribble Bale’s wage to 30M. However, the Beijing local journalist has confirmed with the club staff, there is no one talking to Real Madrid or Bale at the moment or in the past few weeks. In the end, the relay rod goes to the club has the wealth, has the foreign vacant position, and has the motivation to sign big names: Jiangsu Suning FC.
But do we really need G.Bale?
We have two attackers: Trequartista Alex Teixeira and Shadow Striker Eder Citadin Martins. It would be pretty embarrassing if Bale joins with them, either Teixeira or Bale has to change the position to the other side to avoid all the attacks comes from left. And Eder still is a second striker which makes all the passes have to be low and flat. Surely, short players and low pass could lead to the goal as tika-taka did once, but remember, you can’t play that with only 3–4 players has that technique or quality. The Coach Cosmin Olaroiu has clearly demanded a central forward to enrich his tactics and choices.
The second reason I don’t buy this rumor is the situation Suning standing in CSL. 6th in the CSL, 21 points behind ACL zone and 14 points ahead of relegation hell. With only 11 games, it is very difficult for them to step in top three nor the relegation. There is no need for them to buy big names to break the current team harmony. Instead, the club will try every opportunity to give the young players in the club to play and gain the experience.
Also we could find the clubs budget by the transfer rumor linked with Jiangsu this summer: Milan Pavkov of Red Star (3.6M), Federico Santander of Bologna (5.4M)& Jozy Altidore of Toronto FC (3.6M). We can easily conclude the club has no intention to make big change or bring big names.
In the last, the Chinese government has paid more attention to capital flight abroad in sports. And CSL has rules to specified the roof line of signing since last year. Since Real Madrid want to sell Bale, NOT RELEASE ON A FREE TRANSFER. It will still cost a lot for Jiangsu. The sign of Bale may make Suning a maverick to other clubs and has a bad impact among the governors & CFA.
Before we release, the Jiangsu local news said the team is going to sign Junior Negrao, a another FC plays in K-league. It fits the Value, the position, and the use for forth foreign player in CSL.
Gareth Bale is really a great player in last 5 years and will still be for a long term, it is a FANTASTIC signing for Jiangsu Suning FC, but not this summer. The CSL transfer window will be closed in one week, so we can all wait to see what’s going to happen.
