The main actors in football

This chapter introduces the main actors in football and develops a framework based on the authors findings through general as well as expert interviews and from literature. 18 major drivers of elite football in China are identified and discussed. These cover areas such as foreign experience, import of players and coaches, ownership, media right sales, major leagues, youth academies, sponsors, spectators and government "push". The author gives a rough description of some crucial features in the development of Chinese football from the successful decades in the 1920s and 1930s until major political events thoroughly changed the climate. Today's challenges in creating an internationally viable football organization are analyzed. The need for financing and the government's willingness to sponsor is a major such challenge since good players cost money whether developed at home or acquired from abroad. International football has become big business.