Soccer+Industries



=Soccer: Introduction =

Soccer is one of the major sport in contemporary society; it has been globalized throughout the world that it is now almost a compulsory sports to popularize in order to be acknowledged by the eyes of the world. Whenever a nation desires to invest in a sporting business, soccer as well as basketball and baseball are the most appealing category for several good reasons; most significantly, soccer enables the increase in nation's reputation, and this is a critical aspect in terms of world trade, investment and recognition. Fifa (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) has impacted the world finance like other gigantic cooperation: McDonald's, Apple and Adidas, and thus people realized the importance of sporting investment, which attracted numerous sponsors with people's attentions, and from the effect of the result, soccer is now a very popular sport among Western Europeans and Americans.



But how about the soccer industry in **Asia**?
Unlike soccer has been stabilized in the Western cultures, Asians has comparably shorter and less influence in soccer. Nevertheless, Korea, Japan and China each owns a popular Soccer league that are matchable to Europeans' England Premier Leagues and La Liga, but there are still some existing problems that prevent the Asian soccer industries to become prosperous soccer nations.

This is a short video from Wall Street Journal about current Asian Soccer Industries
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=Korea's Soccer Industry=

Korea possess K-League or Korea Professional Football League, and it was established in 1983 which is a part of AFC (Asian Football Club) member. Korean National Soccer team member are usually selected among Korean players in K-League teams, and considering that Korea is a talented nation with soccer, there are no vast difference between European and Korean players in terms of techniques.


 * Then What is the Problem that prevents Korea to grow its Soccer industry?**

The Answer is insufficient popularity from Koreans. Since Korean's soccer player 'Ji-Sung Park' got in to Manchester United in 2005, Korean Soccer fans turned their interest to EPL or England Premier League, where there were outstanding players competing against each other like a world cup final for every single matches. It was indeed intense, and Korean fans begin to criticize the lack of intensity in K-League teams, and thus began to abandon the K-League itself to the darkness. Total number of spectators in 95 matches during the K-League Season 2011 was only 1,200,000, which is quite shocking because the Japanese Professional Football League has already exceeded 11 million numbers of spectators. Ironically, many Korean Sponsors also give up with their investment toward K-League, but use it for EPL: a good example would be SamSeung which has been sponsoring Chelsea in England Premier League for several years. Due to this kind of movements, even the foreign companies are unwilling to invest in K-League, and thus many of K-League teams' institutions are likely to be horrible, according to Ji-Sung Park, "When I was playing in J-League, one day my refrigerator broke, so I called service center, and very surprisingly, they gave me a brand new machine" and this would be impossible in current K-League's circumstance. Eventually, this kind case frequently happens nowadays, "Former K-League player Jeong Jong-Gwan commits suicide" and furthermore, a manipulation in a match result; this merely signifies that K-League is contaminated as well as losing its popularity. The most critical thing is that Koreans are also ignoring the importance of growing up soccer players that +18 Soccer programs are losing their powers due to lack of assistance.


 * Better Efforts, and superior techniques**

The failure in Korean Soccer Industry caused an improvement in technical abilities of Korean players because the players put more efforts to show their talents to the people who are ignoring them, and thus this is why average of K-League teams are better than J-League teams even though J-League has other superior aspects.

=Japan's Soccer Industry= J-League (Japanese Professional Football League), although it was established in 1993 (later than K-League), there were many sponsors that enabled to make totally opposite situation against K-League; they had great institution, service system, firmed sponsorship, and furthermore Japan has recovered its problem that prevented Japan to develop their soccer industries; the technical ability of each individual player. According to April 2011 Fifa official ranking, Japan went up as high as 13th rank while Korea remained at 31st rank. Although Fifa ranking really does not have much relevance to how strong the nation’s soccer technique is, it is the unique official site that lists nations in terms of their skills, and thus Koreans can not merely ignore this. So how has Japan enabled to stabilize their reputation as the best soccer team in Asia, when Koreans were better than Japanese even few years ago?


 * Planning gradual development of Japanese soccer organization**

J-League is as popular as baseball league in Japan. To Japanese perspectives, J-League is a friendly place where the family can rest and spend time at, which signifies that the popularity of J-League was enabled from Japanese’s adoration. Unlike Koreans ignored their own K-League, Japanese has been maintaining very high nationalism toward their J-League, and thus they are not attracted to England Premier League or La Liga like the Koreans are. Nationalism, this is another important aspect that enhances the soccer industry of a nation, and any other nations who are struggling with their soccer industries should learn Japanese; truly embrace the sport and gaining popularity little by little.




 * What are the major differences between Korea and Japan in terms of Soccer?**

Well, since J-League was established, Japan was comparably more prosperous than Korea, and thus Japan's soccer federation could provide outstanding coach and strategy practices; however, the players could not reach to those excellent coach's standards. Thus, a lot of Japan's J-League team brought many of good foreign players from oversees, and some great foreign players were one of them. This has been possible because J-League has many sponsors, and high budgets, while K-League was totally opposite of J-League; they sent Korean players oversees rather than inviting foreign players. Intensity of Competition is also a major difference between two Leagues. While J-League is divided into J-1 League and J-2 League, K-League does not have any kick in&out system. Thus, the teams who are in the low ranking of K-League do not have much motivation to improve their ranking because there would be noting to happen unlike J-League; those teams would be kicked to J-2 League.

=China's Soccer Industry=

Why didn't I mention about China Super league at all yet? Because it is a small league compared to K and J Leagues; however, it is certain that China Super League is the third largest League in Asia.


 * Information**

The number of the teams in China Super League sponsored by Football Association of The People’s Republic of China increased form 14 teams in 2004 to 16 teams in 2009.

WUHAN, Central China, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Among the Chinese soccer funs, no more than half watched China Super League (CSL) matches last year and only 6.65 percent of them had been to the stadiums, according to a survey.


 * Negative Aspects**

Chinese Central Television (CCTV) has stated that they would not broadcast sports for the first round of the 2011 Super League due to the negative image of Chinese soccer.

The local league has been hit for the past few years with chain of match fixing scandals. A lot of players, referees, gamblers and former CFA top officials, including Nan Yong, Yang Yimin and Xie Yalong, have been arrested in a crackdown on soccer corruption.

As a result, CCTV stopped broadcasting league matches and even national team games, including the 2010 East Asian Football Championship, where China defeated South Korea 3-0 en route to the regional title.


 * Self Evaluation:**


 * How successful do you think you conveyed your research to your audience?**

I think I did it quite well, and I controlled myself to write as a Korean perspective; so my writing does not become bias. In fact, I followed the reality, and actually applauded Japan’s system more than Korea’s system, and thus some Koreans may get angry about this.


 * What would have made your presentation more successful?**

I tried to find some videos, and the one I found was not able to be embed onto this wikispace, and thus that was a quite depressing thing to do that I just wrote down the http site.


 * How successful do you think your technology-based materials were in conveying your research?**

My technology that was used to convey my opinion toward the readers was merely a writing with many pictures; however, I divided my writing into many paragraphs, and thus it would have been less boring to the readers to read my project. Of course, there were conspicuous titles classifying my ideas.


 * What would have made your technology-based materials more successful?**

I could have added the technology-based materials such as pdf files, and the one that goes into a different wikispace when clicking a button, but I indeed used some screenshots from keynote; having a unique title with nice background.


 * What did you learn from this project? Submit any other comments after this question.**

I quite learned a lot after researching about the topic; before I began this, I had no idea about Japan professional football league that what I only knew well was Korea League and England Premier League; furthermore, I was also one of the Korea why Japan’s Fifa ranking is higher than Korea, and I figured out that Korea’s player production is inferior than Japan; while Japan has a lot of potential young players (teenagers) as the Japan’s soccer federation invested a lot in this category; however, Korea has been investing comparably less amount to this kind of program. Thus, even though Korea had better players few years ago, there are not many new Koreans who are good at soccer, and good players in the past had already quitted their jobs due to age problem. In overall, I indeed learned a lot about soccer industry in Asia.

Rose, Ian. "J League Returns After Month Break." Offside (2008): 1. Web. 13 Jun 2011. .
 * Works Cited:**

Mirmotahari, Emad. "Soccer, Nationalism, and Globalization." UCLA International Institute (2006): 1. Web. 13 Jun 2011. .

AFRAKHAN, BEHROOZ. "Asian Cup: Plenty of Good Seats Still Available." New York Times (2011): 1. Web. 13 Jun 2011. .

Hays, Jeffrey. "SOCCER IN JAPAN." Facts and Details. Soccer in Japan, March 2010. Web. 13 Jun 2011. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33528425@N04/5146068601/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/peacefc/819063365/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/juvindotcom/10053938/ http://j-league.theoffside.com/j-league-news/oita-trinita-wins-j-league-cup.html http://shibuya246.com/2009/07/15/j-league-soccer/dsc_1624-2/ http://www.latimes.com/sports/soccer/worldcup/la-sp-2010-world-cup-fans-pictures,0,4586684.photogallery http://www.nowpublic.com/sports/world-cup-2010-north-korea-qualifies-photo-05
 * Images:**