Football

New rules, new dodges

新规则，新躲避

Chinese football clubs are struggling with new curbs on foreign players

用钱可以买来国足复兴吗？

1. MUCH grumbling accompanied the start on March 4th of this year’s season of the Chinese Super League (CSL), the uppermost tier of professional football in China. Managers of its 16 clubs have been gnashing their teeth at a change of rules which was suddenly announced just a few weeks before the first matches. Teams are now allowed to field a maximum of three foreigners.

gnash your teeth: to be very angry or unhappy about something, or to move your teeth against each other so that they make a noise, especially because you are unhappy or angry
field: If a sports team fields a particular number or type of players, the players are chosen to play for the team on a particular occasion.
e.g. England intend fielding their strongest team in next month's World Youth Championship.

1）许多抱怨伴随着中国超级联赛（CSL）今年赛季3月4日的开赛，该联赛是中国职业足球最高级别的比赛。其16个俱乐部的管理人员正对在第一场比赛前几个星期才突然宣布的规则改变咬牙切齿。（现在规定）球队现在最多可以允许选择三名外国人。

2. The clubs would have preferred more notice. Many of them have only just acquired even more foreign players. All now have at least four, the previous maximum per side in any CSL game. (One of them, a Brazilian called Oscar, is pictured in a CSL match—he was transferred to Shanghai SIPG from Chelsea, an English club, for £60m, or about $75m, in December.) Last year China spent more than $450m on footballers, the fifth-largest such outlay by any country.
   2）如果有更多的警告这些俱乐部本会更开心。其中许多俱乐部刚刚购买了更多的外国球员。现在所有的CSL（每个）俱乐部中至少有四个外援，这是之前在任何中超比赛中每队的最大值。 （图片是其中之一，一名叫做奥斯卡的巴西球员正在中超比赛中——他于12月份以6000万英镑（约合7500万美元）的价格从切尔西转会到上海上港集团足球俱乐部。去年，中国花了超过4.5亿美元用于购买足球运动员，这在任何国家类似的支出中排第五。

3. But all this money has not improved the dismal state of Chinese football. The men’s national team ranks 82nd in the world. In October an embarrassing 1-0 defeat to war-torn Syria triggered protests by hundreds of fans in the city of Xi’an where the match was played. Local media say the Chinese Football Association announced its new rules on orders “from above”. They impose a levy on big transfers and demand that one-sixth of clubs’ spending must be on youth training.

3）但是这一切都没有改善中国足球令人沮丧的状态。男子国家队在世界排名第82。十月份一场令人尴尬的1-0败给了遭受战争破坏的叙利亚（国家队），导致在比赛举办城市西安有数百名球迷举行了抗议活动。国内媒体说，中国足球协会宣布它的新规则是“来自上面”的规定。他们对大额转会费征收费用，并要求俱乐部六分之一的支出必须用在青年球员培训上。

4. Officials have also been trying to curb the buying of stakes in foreign clubs— Chinese investors shelled out about $2bn on them last year. The government says this is part of an economy-wide clamp-down on currency outflows. But it also wants to make the point that foreign talent won’t necessarily help China’s. The government has recently scuppered several investment deals. A Chinese consortium bought AC Milan, an Italian club, for $825m in August, but has been unable to move money out of China to complete the purchase.

shell out: If you shell out for something, you spend a lot of money on it. (INFORMAL) = fork out
e.g. You won't have to shell out a fortune for it...

4）官员们也一直在试图遏制外国俱乐部的股权购买——中国投资者去年豪掷了约二十亿美元用于此。政府表示，这是对于资金外流进行经济管控的一部分。但它也想证明外国人才不一定能帮助中国。最近政府破坏了几笔投资交易。一家中国财团于（去年）8月份以8.25亿美元收购意大利AC米兰俱乐部，但无法将资金转出中国以完成购买。

5. Rather than simply moaning about the new rules, clubs have been devising ways of dodging them. Teams must now field at least one Chinese player under 23 each week. Some coaches simply replace them early in the game with older hands.
   5）俱乐部们并没有仅仅抱怨新的规则，而是一直在设计躲避规则的方式。足球队现在每周至少要挑选一名23岁以下的中国球员。有些教练只是在比赛刚开始时用老手取代他们。

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原文出处：经济学人杂志

译者：七呵夫

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