Asia and the Future of Football

The Role of the Asian Football Confederation

Ben Weinberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780415376952
• eBook ISBN: 9781317576310
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Popular Culture
• Index: Social Sciences

Football is the most popular sport in the world. Globalisation and commercialisation of the game, however, have created new conflicts and challenges. This book explores the role of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) within the rising significance of football in Asia, drawing on three key theoretical perspectives: globalisation, neo-institutionalism and governance, as well as comprehensive data from interviews and archive material. It explores the organisational structure of AFC, its decision-making processes, relations with other actors, and policies put forward. To understand the specificities AFC has faced in its 60-year history, the broader historical, political, economic, socio-cultural and geographic contexts of football in Asia are taken into account.

1 Asia and the future of football

Introduction and contextualisation

Football is the most popular game in the world. Its success story relates to how it has adapted to distinctive local interests and contexts around the globe. However, in political terms, globalisation and commercialisation processes have created new constellations, conflicts and challenges for sport in general and football in particular. In fact, the debate on the relation between sport and politics has intensified in recent years. If one inquires of an athlete or club official, then sport as an activity and competitive field of action is most often regarded as apolitical. At the same time, others have expressed their belief in the cultural and political synergies sport is presumed to release. Governments and states use sport as means of public diplomacy or enhancing national identities and collective memories. The French philosopher Robert Redeker (2008: 499–500) has argued, however, that it is ‘an illusion to think of sports as [a] controllable’ tool since it ‘is a total system, a planetary machine that profoundly transforms men and women as well as their relation to the world’. He claims that sport ‘has devoured politics […] while facilitating a theatre of international relations parallel to that of diplomacy’. Due to its supposed dominance over other societal driving forces, he concludes that it ‘is the total contemporaneous social myth that has enlisted politics and international relations in its service’.

It is hardly surprising that questions about spheres of influence and the power exercised within and through the organisational capacities of sport have received public attention as well as extensive media coverage. With regard to the beautiful game, eyes have turned to organisations such as FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Following the nomination of Qatar as host country for the World Cup in 2022 and the subsequent competition between Sepp Blatter and Mohamed Bin Hammam for the FIFA Presidency in 2011, ethical and organisational aspects of governing world football have been in the spotlight. It seems the public not only wants to better understand the relation between sport and politics, but also the political processes taking place within the sport sector. Under consideration of the emergence of new powers in the sport policy arena, attention has been drawn to the roles of specific actors as well as structural and cultural characteristics.

In fact, the global awareness of regions like Asia has grown and perceptions of its sport and football culture have changed. This is not only linked to Asia’s rise to economic and political power but in terms of football, for instance to the impact of the World Cup 2002 in South Korea and Japan. Sepp Blatter expressed his belief that Asian football will play an eminent role in the future of world football when he said: ‘In Asia you have more than half the world’s population and the future of football must be in Asia’ (quoted in Asian Football Confederation, 2002: 33). Another example of this perception is AFC’s official slogan ‘The Future is Asia’, which resonates with its major policy objective, namely the aim to facilitate sustainable development and professionalisation of football in Asia (BBC Sport, 2004).

As the dust settled from the successful outcome of the World Cup 2002 in South Korea and Japan, the view of Asian football was on its way to significant reform. Except for North Korea’s advancement to the quarter-finals in the World Cup 1966 in England, Asian male football teams had performed to a relatively low level at international football tournaments, and therefore the contribution to spreading and preserving the popularity of football across Asia remained rather marginal. Despite the fact that some Asian players such as Cha Bum-Kun, Park Ji-Sung, Hidetoshi Nakata or Ali Daei made it to the big leagues in Europe, Asian footballers had often been criticised by western coaches for not having the quality to compete on an international scale (Kramer, 2005; Giulianotti and Robertson, 2007: 181; Murray, 1995: 141). This opinion has changed in recent years, taking into consideration the increase of Asian players in leagues like the German Bundesliga where players such as Shinji Kagawa have been pillars of success. This process has led to debates on how Asian football should deal with the migration of players to other regions (Ehrmann and Klappenbach, 2011; Duerden, 2011).

In contrast, female Asian national squads have had a considerable impact on the development and significance of women’s football in Asia, with teams such as China having performed successfully during its ‘golden age’ from 1986 to 1999 (Hong and Mangan, 2003: 52). Japan’s Women’s World Cup victory in 2011 constitutes a reflection of this development. In terms of legitimisation and commercialisation, however, women’s club football in Asia is still trailing behind its male counterpart.

Former AFC General Secretary Paul Mony Samuel (2008) has noted that, in comparison with other regions, football in Asia has developed differently in terms of cultural, social, economic and political aspects. He argued that the size of the continent has been counterproductive to a coherent and systematic development, unlike in Europe and elsewhere. In addition, the dominance of European football through extensive media coverage and marketing strategies has been a further impediment to the growth of Asian football. It thus requires fostering grassroots and youth development, coach education, the emergence of role models, the improvement of structures and relevant frameworks as well dealing with match fixing, bribery and corruption (Manzenreiter and Horne, 2007: 565, 573). When embarking upon the nomination of South Korea and Japan as host countries for the World Cup 2002 and after the subsequent success of that tournament, the AFC therefore formulated an objective to improve all aspects of Asian football, at both the grassroots and professional levels. Through launching its football development programme ‘Vision Asia’ in 2002, AFC began implementing its mission in collaboration with a selection of member associations. Further policy initiatives were launched in the form of a financial aid programme and a social responsibility campaign (Weinberg, 2012: 546–548).

From the 1970s onwards and since the beginning of the Presidency of João Havelange in FIFA, the global infrastructure of football has undergone a considerable transformation in terms of shifting from Eurocentric dominance to a conflict of power between traditional and peripheral football nations. This discrepancy of interests found increasing expression during the 1990s, when the traditional pyramid of football government was affected by a web of new relations between miscellaneous private, economic and political actors who were to gain more and more influence and significance. Aspects of commercialisation, broadcasting rights and financial resources developed into central driving forces accompanied by legal and political matters. Federations and governing bodies saw themselves confronted with new opposing players and therefore had to start reconsidering their traditional autonomy while attempting to maintain their political power. In fact, the growing friction between autonomy and regulation has been accelerated by recent debates surrounding accusations of corruption, bribery and manipulation that have not only been spotlighted by the media but by national governments and the European Union. Additionally, representatives of associations and confederations have expressed concerns with these issues and have been looking for ways of intervening in and eroding the traditional political system of world football. Therefore governing bodies have seen themselves confronted with a range of stakeholders that contains potential for conflict between federations, governmental actors, players, clubs, leagues, fans, sponsors or media corporations, while the task of organising competitions and supporting the development of football in terms of education, administration and management, as well as sustaining its cultural matrix, remains central to the vitality of governing bodies (Lee, 2003: 114–116; Giulianotti and Robertson, 2009: 114–116; Henry, 2007: 8; Houlihan, 2003: 31; Groll, 2007: 188–189; Schulze, 2002: 17).

Research specifically into football in Asia continues to be generally limited, although the number of publications that cover it (which are more related to the general topic of football) is relatively high. Most studies concerned with Asian football have concentrated on aspects such as the development of the game itself, or its technical, administrative and business-oriented implications, depending on the academic perspective (e.g. Andreff and Szymanski, 2006; Beech and Chadwick, 2004; Dobson and Goddard, 2001; Hamil et al., 1999). Few studies have been concerned with cultural and societal aspects (e.g. Armstrong and Giulianotti, 1999; Hopf, 1998; Sugden and Tomlinson, 2002; Guttmann, 1994). Even fewer have aimed at offering a political science approach to the topic (e.g. Fanizadeh et al., 2002; Wagg, 1995; Mittag and Nieland, 2007) and those that have explored this field have tended to focus on the European game (e.g. Holt, 2009; Garcia, 2008; Strünck, 2007; Gammelsæter and Senaux, 2011).

The role of international governance in football against the background of globalisation has been part of Giulianotti’s studies (2007). By conducting a multi-dimensional and transnational examination of football with regard to its history, class, gender, ethnicity and nationalism, fans, finance and television, plus the often neglected evolution of aesthetics as a mirror of cultural specificities, Giulianotti produced a capacious account which has been extended through collaboration with Robertson (2009). This resulted in the creation of a theoretical model for the sociological assessment of the development of football. Nonetheless, these works lack a distinctive political science analysis of football in general and Asian football in particular.

Meanwhile, historical accounts of the governing body FIFA have been provided by Eisenberg et al. (2004), while the power relations behind FIFA have caught the interest of Sugden and Tomlinson (1998; 1999). In addition, Darby (2002) has worked on FIFA and football in Africa, including the role of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), through delivering insights into political structures, procedures and particularly the power relations in world football. Also Sugden and Tomlinson (1997) as well as Darby et al. (1998) have dealt with the relation between FIFA and UEFA and their struggle for control. However, apart from one chapter in Sugden and Tomlinson’s (1998) book on the global governing body FIFA and a couple of passages in their follow-up publication Badfellas (2003), AFC as a topic remains underexposed in research. Few publications have specific regard to the development of football in Asia. Dimeo and Mills (2001) have edited a book on football in southeast Asia, while the role of football in the Far East has been in the focus of the works of Horne and Manzenreiter (Horne and Manzenreiter 2002; Manzenreiter and Horne 2004). In addition, Majumdar and Bandyopadhyay (2006a; 2006b) have authored two books on football in India.

This book is concerned with the question of which role AFC plays in the infrastructure of Asian and global football. The objective of this examination inevitably connects to the question of how to analyse AFC, and whether the approach employed provides an analytical benefit for sport policy research focusing on actors, structures, interactions and constellations within and outside of sport governing bodies. Based on the tripartite analytical approach examining polity, politics and policy (Lösche, 2010), this analysis takes a look at the organisational structure of AFC and its institutional environment, the relevant decision-making processes taking place around and within AFC, and the programmes and specific policies formulated and implemented by the confederation. This includes an assessment of key actors on all analytical levels, an identification of policy aspirations, priorities and value systems, and an examination of available resources and dependencies in order to evaluate power relations, discourses, interactions and the environmental setting. Furthermore, these aspects and the strategies and instruments employed by AFC in the sport policy delivery process are assessed alongside the broader historical, political, economic, socio-cultural and geographic contexts and structures that shape the policies in order to portray possible path dependencies and development trends.

While focusing on the determinants, strategies, processes, contents and instruments in order to explore, describe and explain the role of AFC in the infrastructure of football politics, this study cannot provide a substitute to an exhaustive evaluation of actual policy implementation, its outcomes and its effectiveness. It is necessary to build upon a selection of theoretical and conceptual frameworks that are put forward in current debates in political science on how to assess paradigmatic changes in the global political structure, such as new forms of horizontal steering and regulation through various actors and institutions. It is appropriate to refer to perspectives on globalisation, neo-institutionalism and governance in order to answer the question in how far these concepts are considered useful in obtaining theoretically informed hypotheses concerning the role of AFC. Moreover, the method-oriented question of which specific indicators and factors help with identifying and tracing AFC’s role will be answered. Finally, the analysis-oriented question of what conclusions can be drawn, with regard to both the theoretical frameworks for further sport policy research and the future development of Asian football, will be dealt with.

In consideration of the theoretical framework, three roles are suggested (see Chapter 2). The role of AFC as a ‘glocal player’ refers to concepts of globalisation and calls for focusing not just on the historical context in which AFC developed and established itself, its political location in an Asian and global context, and the inherent tensions and conflicts – as well as its authority – in terms of homogenisation and regulation, but also on how far AFC is affected by feedback mechanisms and other driving forces. The proposed role of AFC as ‘corporate actor’ draws attention to the institutional context it operates in, its function as an organisation which acts independently, and the importance of individual actors within decision-making processes and policy formulations. The governance-oriented role as a ‘skilful negotiator’ requires an examination of how AFC interacts with other actors in the sense of a horizontalised sport policy system.

The analysed data consists of academic literature, online sources, press documents, archive material and interviews. Field trips to AFC’s and FIFA’s headquarters provided the opportunity to gather primary sources and conduct semi-structured interviews with members of staff. In addition, former employees, journalists, academics and representatives of other associations or AFC-related actors functioned as interviewees. The historical period which wa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Asia and the future of football: introduction and contextualisation
• 2 Analysing the Asian Football Confederation: theoretical perspectives and approaches
• 3 Football in Asia: developments and challenges
• 4 AFC’s history and origins
• 5 AFC’s relations and constellations
• 6 AFC’s framework and decision-making
• 7 AFC’s policies, strategies and activities
• 8 Understanding the politics of football: discussion and conclusions
• Index