Passion, power and politics. The beautiful game in East Asia ft Seungbum Lee

From Japan's and South Korea's heroics at past World Cups to the advent of global stars from the region, East Asia has made a splash in world football in recent years. The trajectory of the Chinese Super League, however, that it's not all progress. In this episode Francesco and Guy spoke to Professor Seungbum Lee  of Akron  University about the rise and fall of the Chinese Super League, the social impact of the beautiful game in different East Asian countries and the development of professional football in Japan and South Korea. Seungbum talks about the geopolitics of football in the region,  the K and J Leagues and their development in the last decades, and why his beloved football club is giving him heartbreak!    

Transcript

Football in East Asia, ft. Seungbum Lee

Francesco Belcastro 00:10
 Hello and welcome to a new episode of football, the podcast where football meets politics. I'm Dr. Francesco Belcastro, one of your co -hosts and here with me is my co -host, Dr. Guy Burton. 
 
 

Guy Burton 00:20
 Hello, how are you? How are you? Oh dear, okay, hi, sorry. I cut you, cut across you. Anyway, I'm good. And yourself? 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 00:26
 I'm all right, I'm all right. I'm super excited about today's episode, Guy. 
 
 

Guy Burton 00:30
 Yeah, why? What are we talking about today? 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 00:32
 We're talking about the politics of football in East Asia. Okay. It's a big one. It's a big one. And so we're going to be talking about China and the Super League. We're going to talk about the politics of football in Japan and Korea. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 00:45
 And if we have a bit of time, we're going to talk about Chelsea Football Club. I understand as well. 
 
 

Guy Burton 00:51
 Yes, this is because the person we're speaking to today, you want to do the introductions? 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 00:55
 Yes, the reason why we're going to be talking about all these things and about Chelsea Football Club is that we have a great expert, a great friend of our podcast, Professor Seungbum Lee. Professor Lee is a professor in the Department of Management at the University of Akron at the College of Business. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 01:12
 His research lies in the intersection between sport and business strategy. He's published widely on a lot of the topics that we mentioned, but also he is a big football fan, so maybe we can start from there. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 01:24
 Hello Seungbum, how are you? 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 01:26
 I'm doing great, how are you guys? 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 01:28
 I'm good, I'm good. So I was wondering whether you would, you want to start with Chelsea and then we will talk about the rest or where do we want to start this chat from? 
 
 

Guy Burton 01:36
 Yes, I mean how? Why? Why Chelsea? 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 01:40
 Normally, I love to talk about my football club, but probably not this season. As of right now, we are not really doing great. So I can certainly talk about Chelsea Football Club and my fanship for nonstop 30 minutes for this podcast, but probably not this time. 
 
 

Guy Burton 01:57
 Fair enough. 
 
 

Guy Burton 01:58
 Alright well...
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 01:59
 We'll have to arrange a new episode for that. We'll invite a couple of our friends, we're Chelsea fans as well. Okay, then maybe we can start from another topic. I mean, an obvious one, and one on which you have a lot of expertise is the issue of the Chinese expansion in the game, sort of pushed the China head 10, 15 years ago now, there was building a league that in the view of many people, resembles a big what Saudi Arabia is doing now. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 02:30
 Can you tell us a bit about how that happened? What was the status of the game in China before? And how is it that we find ourselves suddenly with a sort of boom of football in China? Would at least look to a side as a big boom of football in China? 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 02:46
 I believe it is very relevant to discuss the birth of Chinese Super League as it is directly or indirectly reflecting, I guess, depending on how you get it, the pictures of what the state of the game was in China in the past. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 03:01
 Back in 2014, so it's almost 10 years ago, right? The Chinese State Council announced a nationwide plan that promotes the sports industry and overall sports consumption. And part of this plan is transforming of Chinese domestic football league. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 03:25
 Prior to Chinese Super League, it's called Jia-A. That was the highest tier of professional football in China, and that was between 1994 and 2003. So we talk about pre -Chinese Super League that started in 2004. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 03:42
 So again, it was 1994 where China created a professional football league. It may sound not that interesting, especially when we compared the decades of history of European football leagues, however, from an East Asian football perspective, I think it is interesting to mention that even J -league, for example, considered the most developed domestic league in Asia for some experts, officially kicked off its first season with 10 clubs in 1993. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 04:17
 So in China, the football federation's effort to create the league has been always there. It's not something that came out of nowhere within the last 10 years or so. So we have to recognize the football history in China, though it is short. 
 
 

Guy Burton 04:35
 One thing you mentioned is that this this this was a decision taken in 2014 by you know the the higher council but two years before that we had sort of the rise of Xi Jinping you know the current Chinese president and and some people sort of attribute you know his rise, his presence to this movement to make China a more a greater football power because I believe he had some interest in the game would that be correct? 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 05:02
 Absolutely. I think it is no secret at all that President Xi Jinping is a fan of football. And some of the listeners may remember this very iconic selfie, here with Sergio Aguero back in 2015 at Etihad Stadium, who at the time played for Manchester City. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 05:21
 And I still remember there was a newspaper article from BBC newspaper, and it's titled actually with that selfie of the year in quotations marks. Sergio Aguero, the PM and the Chinese President Xi Jinping. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 05:36
 So apparently Xi Jinping, according to the newspaper article, you know, met former Manchester City player Sun Ji-hae, there is absolutely the individual level of interest in the game of football. But certainly his personal interest in football provides the strategic opportunities. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 05:59
 And I guess that is the Manchester City club. Manchester City Football Club serves as a diplomatic border between China and England. And I think what is more important is that his public remarks about China's soccer dream, so as to be the next global football powerhouse, really had a different effect to Chinese corporations, whether they are state controlled corporations or privately owned corporations. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 06:31
 And when I said the different fact, I think one of the ways to publicly, but yet symbolically and politically demonstrate corporations' support to President Xi is European football club acquisition. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 06:48
 So, for example, since we are talking about Manchester City here, this club is owned by Abu Dhabi United Group. But CITIC, a state owned firm, one of China's largest conglomerates, specialized in financial statements also has 1% of ownership of the club. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 07:13
 And they traditionally have been very active in outbound direct investment. And they at the time engaged in football ODI, given the importance of supporting President Xi's announcement. So we certainly observed many corporations supporting President Xi's remark through European football club acquisition. 
 
 

Guy Burton 07:35
 We've had at least a couple of people on the show who've talked about how actually football is a bit of a bad business decision, right? That you don't make a lot of money out of football. So the question then really becomes, I mean, why are these companies deciding to invest in football abroad? 
 
 

Guy Burton 07:50
 Is it solely to demonstrate loyalty to or demonstrate commitment to the leadership in China? I mean, are they or do they see it as a real business proposition? 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 08:01
 Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think there are a couple of different things here to unpack. In general, investment in sports in nature brings attention. Undoubtedly, it generates positive vibes. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 08:18
 But at the same time, you're right, Guy. There is some sort of misperception that sports investment will make a quick bucks, because it's easy to produce content. Sports is globally appealing, especially when we talk about the football. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 08:35
 It is a great vehicle for, I guess, convergence with entertainment, technology, media, sports, etc. And so there seems to be some approach by the Chinese corporations from a financial perspective. At the end of the day, we don't really see high return on investment. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 09:01
 There is not enough evidence showing high investment leading to high efficiencies. In this case, I guess when it comes to Chinese corporations, financial investment, it's many politically driven strategies to support President Xi's personal remark. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 09:22
 So I think it's a really fair question, Guy, and many other listeners out there, to really question about this movement, whether or not it is strategic. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 09:34
 Yeah, I was wondering if I could sort of jump in and ask you something a bit different. So you mentioned the selfie with with Aguero, but another iconic picture is the one of the Chinese president with with then FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, that he met on several occasions, I believe. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 09:50
 And I think the idea was that he wanted to bring the World Cup to to China. Now, from our point of view, and we're not followers, perhaps so much of the Chinese game, this drive towards expansion, has slowed down, if not collapsed completely. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 10:06
 And this also seems to be reflected in the fact that there was a phase in which there were a lot of was a lot of Chinese investment in the in the English game, Birmingham City, I think was one of the clubs, minority quarters in other clubs in the Midlands as well. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 10:20
 Is it fair to say that that there's been a sort of change of direction? And is it then again, part of a sort of political change from from the leadership and political change of views? 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 10:30
 So when we talk about the boom and the boom and bust, I'm not entirely surprised by that. I think it is another example of, you know, one step forward and two step back scenario that we have seen quite often in other sectors in the past in China. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 10:50
 I do not know if the whole shift that you are referring to Francesco is necessarily new or surprising to political leaders in China. As some of the listeners may know, the real estate market is going through a lot of consolidation in China, and they have a really major supporters of financially speaking of China's Super League. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 11:21
 There's an even newspaper article, even today, from Yahoo Finance, and there are actually a lot of different newspaper articles talking about what is going to happen with real estate market and its impact on China's Super League. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 11:36
 I think the real estate market, if you look at it, will become an increasingly bifurcated sector as some financial experts argue. And so, the bigger, stronger developers who have support from the local government versus smaller developers, market structure through consolidation is not necessarily unheard of or unorthodox by Chinese business. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 12:04
 So again, nothing totally new or anything like this in my mind personally. However, I think it is pretty clear that for fans, in that fan culture there, has been over the last past year, it's been completely destroyed. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 12:23
 The problem is that, unfortunately, a lot of Chinese Super League fans have to deal with all the changes. Remember, in the league problems, like a club shutting down, players leaving, and not coming from the fans or the players or the coaching staff or whoever is working or the behind the scenes work for the club, the problems stemming from the business leaders, political leaders, who may not understand what it's like to run fan -friendly and community -friendly football clubs. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 12:56
 So I think when it comes to the shift that we are seeing right now, I don't think that's something really new or surprising because we haven't seen a lot in different sectors in China in the past. Unfortunately, it is the fans who are going to suffer, who are going to experience this in a tough time because of all the changes coming from the league office or from the parent company of the clubs. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 13:24
 From an outsider, I assume that the Chinese Super League have been quite successful in terms of getting a higher number of fans, attending matches, and following the league. So I would assume that now you're gonna have a lot of people who are unhappy because a product or a team that they're supporting has been shut down or has been sort of scaled down as an operation. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 13:44
 Would you say that's the case? Has that created some sort of unhappiness, you would say, among fans? 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 13:49
 You are absolutely correct. And if you look at the CSL average attendance per game, even a few years ago, pre-COVID, the CSL probably ranked in the top 10 in the world. So it is very well attended. The league probably the best in terms of the number of people at the game in any Asian leagues. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 14:14
 Even some of the Chinese clubs are traveling for Asian Champions League, whether it is in Australia or whether it's in Japan or South Korea. There are a lot of fans because they have all the star players like Oscar and the Hulk and Didier Drogba even. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 14:31
 So they brought a lot of fans from China to Asian Champions League matchup in Korea. I still vividly remember that more than a thousand fans from China just fly to watch the Asian Champions League away games. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 14:49
 So you are absolutely right. It is very well attended game. Now, after COVID, it's a very different situation and fans are unhappy. It's mainly because of some of the misfinancial management of the club, some of the ethical managerial issues that the company, parent company as well as clubs are going through. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 15:15
 That certainly made fans unhappy. 
 
 

Guy Burton 15:18
 You see the situation of the last 10 years, sort of the bust, as the boom and the bust of the Chinese Super League and the impact this has had on business as well as fans, is this a unique case study or can we see in this something about the state of Chinese politics and the relationship between Chinese politics and society more generally? 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 15:41
 So like I said, I'm not entirely surprised by the boom and bust because we've been seen like one step forward and two steps back scenario in the past in different sectors in the past in China. So I do not necessarily think that this situation is totally new or totally different to a lot of businesses associated with the Chinese Super League. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 16:14
 But still it's the fans who will suffer the most because of a different shift happening within the league. Their team is shutting down. Their team is relegated to the second division. And we saw the example of Evergrande Guangzhou, which has been one of the powerhouse in the Chinese Super League. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 16:39
 They won the Asian Champions League twice, but they went down to second division because of the mismanagement of the team. So I think overall, if we look at the society and the sport and the politics, is there something that's really unique happening to sports? 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 16:56
 I personally don't believe so. It is happening whether it's just for joint not this kind of one step forward and two steps back scenario happened quite frequently in the past in China if you look at different sectors and business. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 17:12
 I was wondering whether we could ask you about other big powers, powerhouses of the Asia-Pacific region. I know it's very difficult to generalize, but you have expertise also in Japan, Korea and Australia. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 17:30
 What's the picture there? From an outsider, we have seen progress on the pitch from the national teams, particularly in the case of Japan. What's happening? What are the things that our listeners should be aware of at the moment? 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 17:45
 Well, this is very interesting question and at the same time very loaded questions, which is perfectly fine. I love this question. I personally believe it is a very important, you know, point of discussion as we talk about, you know, football club ownership. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 18:03
 And here we focus on APEC region where we see sports are very interconnected with politics and commercialization in evidence in past few decades. And so I found this question not only interesting but also very important to policy makers as well as individuals in academia. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 18:30
 I think it is almost impossible for any of us today to really predict what the future of intersection between football and politics in the APEC region. Had I predicted 20 years ago that Carlos Tevez and Didier Drogba and Hulk and Oscar to try to play for the Asian Champions League - not the U .S. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 18:52
 Champions League - Asian Champions League and representing Chinese clubs so that they would play games against the clubs in Vietnam and Australia. I think people would call me crazy, right? Certainly, I did not expect that 20 years ago, but here we saw Oscar and Hulk play for the Asian Champions League. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 19:16
 What is important is that we do know that there will be continuous, you know, football landscape changes and some might be more profound changes than others. So what I'm saying is that we don't know for sure, but I don't know if I can necessarily name the clubs, markets or political leaders who we need to look out. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 19:40
 And yes, it appears that there was some high level conversation about Russian Football Union joining Asian Football Confederation. So that some of these clubs can play for the Asian Champions League. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 19:55
 Also, both right now J League and K League as a league: They had talks internally about switching league structure from spring to fall to fall to spring so that it can coincide - It can be consistent with European season. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 20:18
 Since Asian Champions League structure has been changed to September start like the UEFA Champions League, I think this is a perfect time to talk about that. And also, multi club ownership model will continue as we see in the Red Bull example, as we see the City Football Group example, and even some Chinese corporations own one club in Chinese Super League and also they own one club overseas. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 20:48
 So certainly there are a lot of different things going on in this APEC region. I think all of these are excellent trend to keep an eye on. I think, however, I still believe this APEC region is still something that we have to continuously follow. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 21:06
 I'm not saying that football from this region will generate some forces that will completely reshape the football industry paradigm profoundly. However, remember we talked about APEC region that includes South Korea, China, Japan, primarily. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 21:25
 And those countries are historically, geopolitically very complicated and they are geopolitical rivals. The term of geopolitics has not been, I guess, unfamiliar to many Koreans, whether they follow sports or not, whether we talk about politics, economy. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 21:48
 This is mainly due to Korea's very unique geographic location with the neighbor in China, Japan, North Korea and very close to Russia. And then decades of close political and military relationship with the United States within the Korean Peninsula. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 22:08
 So certainly football and geopolitics have been always very much interconnected. And I think looking at this region generates meaningful point of discussion for many. So if I may, let me add a few more on APEC football and politics by talking about first J League situation. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 22:30
 Mm -hmm. I was actually gonna ask you about the... because you mentioned the J League and the K League and they're seen as a sort of successful models. And sometimes kind of in opposition to the Chinese Super League. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 22:41
 So yeah, I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about that. Yeah Guy, sorry, go ahead. 
 
 

Guy Burton 22:45
 Yes, just because my memory serves me. I mean, my historic understanding of the K League, a lot of the teams there were very much closely associated with particular companies. There was a very close relationship wasn't there?
 
 

Guy Burton 22:56
 And a lot of these companies were the large - I wouldn't say they were state companies, but they were quite closely aligned to the state. But I assume that the ownership model has now changed somewhat. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 23:06
 That is absolutely correct, Guy. So to provide some background information about the K -League Club ownership model, the clubs are run by either conglomerates, like Samsung or Hyundai, or it's a municipal or local government. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 23:23
 Some of the K -League clubs are owned by the corporation. So the name of a particular club include the name of the parent company that owns the team. So for example, Ulsan Hyundai, who won the K -League last year, is named after the company Hyundai based in South Korea. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 23:45
 Jeonbuk Hyundai is another club that is also named after Hyundai. Suwon Samsung is named after the business conglomerate Samsung based in Korea and so forth. So, and this isn't necessarily unorthodox in APEC region since you see this unique names like this in other sports like baseball, volleyball, basketball, hockey, etcetera. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 24:14
 And this is not just Korea... Again, it's Taipei, Taiwan or Japan. Some other nations have this kind of unique ownership model. The... Another ownership model is a local government operation model. So it is somewhat complicated to understand I guess, but in theory, the local government operation model is a community owned football clubs. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 24:43
 And not only that, this model is to allow citizens core ownership of the club and to generate more sort of like a sense of belonging and community integration into the club and to serve as a vehicle to represent club cities or province or region. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 25:04
 And all of that is actually lacking if you look at the corporation owned the club model. What's interesting is that, however, in reality, the local government operation model is managed by the city council. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 25:21
 And the mayor of the city actually serves as a club chairman. So financially, one of the main problems is that since there's no large parent company for this kind of club, the local government operation model club heavily rely on local government financial support. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 25:45
 It doesn't make big money out of media deals. It doesn't make big money out of a game day revenues because they don't own the stadium. The stadium is owned by the city, not by the club. And to provide some context in the K -League, the majority of the revenue for the team actually comes from the parent companies. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 26:11
 So in other words, the local government has to make a tough decision as to how much money they have to spend on daily operations. But non -financial, which I think is even more problematic, the mayor will not stay in the office forever. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 26:29
 So depending on who the mayor is or will be and which party that they will represent, the club's fate will be decided. The club may have someone who is very supportive to the club, as a chairman, or the chairman may be a little bit skeptical about spending local taxpayers' money on the club operation. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 26:57
 So due to these structural problems, clubs cannot set long -term plans because they don't know how much money they will be given year after year from the local government. This club therefore cannot secure long -term investment. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 27:14
 They cannot develop long -term vision for the club. So this is a structural problem. It will continue to be an issue for many clubs with the local government operation model, especially when the team is performing poorly. 
 
 

Guy Burton 27:30
 So that was the situation with the K League and what clubs there face, whether they're owned by conglomerates or municipalities. But you were going to tell us something about the J League and Japanese investment as well, weren't you? 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 27:44
 It's a very, very mature market right now. I think a couple of different things here, I want to make a comment on. One is like Chinese corporations have been doing, Japanese corporations too, have been engaging with foreign football club acquisition efforts, though it's not the same level that Chinese corporations have been doing. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 28:05
 So we talk about, you know, Japanese corporations acquired football clubs in Cambodia, Singapore, clubs in Africa as well, and even in Belgium. Belgium is a particularly interesting one because Sint Truizan... Guy, let me know if my pronunciation is incorrect. 
 
 

Guy Burton 28:29
 Sint Truiden. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 28:30
 Sint Truiden. That's the club acquired by Japanese company, DMM.com back in 2017. And this is a Japan based e -commerce company. Currently, if you look at their rosters of the first team, there are more than a half dozen of Japanese players on the roster. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 28:52
 Half of them are actually loaned players from J -League. And past five years or so, if you look at the talent flow of some of the Japanese players currently playing in Europe, some of them actually started their first European football career in this club. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 29:10
 So I think this is a really interesting case in that this company actually provide a gateway for Japanese players so that they can play in European football league. I don't think there will be several additional world... Japanese corporation who will create another gateway for Japanese players. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 29:39
 But I will not be surprised if some other Japanese corporations acquire European football clubs, whether it is with a financial driven initiative or non -financial driven initiative. J -League celebrate 30th anniversary this year. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 30:01
 It is very stable, financially very healthy league. Today they average of almost 18,000 fans per game in a country where baseball is very strong, in a variety of different measures. I think when it comes to the intersection of sports and the politics in J -League particularly, we will continuously see more local government support to J -League clubs. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 30:31
 Right now, all J1 and J2 clubs already have a pretty strong local ties in their franchise. And even last year, a chairman of the league actually emphasized once again on building close ties with their local communities. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 30:49
 But both the league and the clubs will continuously, but yes, strategically emphasize on developing local teams' identity. And so it is safe to assume that there will be continuous support from local government, like providing financial resources to its local J -League clubs. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 31:10
 And remember when J -League started back in 1993, the entire ecosystem there heavily relied on corporate partnerships. So Yokohama Mariners, for example, one of the J -League clubs right now, they actually started from Nissan FC back in the 1970s. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 31:30
 And we all know Nissan: Nissan is a Japanese multi -national automobile manufacturer. And now they are staying away from the team naming right model so that they can bring more local flavor, local connection to their team. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 31:47
 So now it is Yokohama Mariners - I'm sorry, Yokohama Mariners. I think again, compared to K -League, we talk about K -League a little bit. If I can share my conversation with a GM of the K2 Club, the second division of the K -League, that was a local government operation model club. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 32:14
 And he's shared the challenges that he faces as a GM of the club, especially when it comes to how to secure financial resources from the local government. What he said was that it is much easier to receive funding from local government if you are a museum or a library than you are a football club. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 32:37
 It is much easier to come up with convincing argument as to why taxpayers, it has to support the local support the museum or the library than the football club. You may want to ask why that's the case because it appears that Korea is very passionate about football like we saw in the World Cup, Asian Cup or even Asian Games, which is going on right now, it in China, Korea versus China, there's in a quarter final match, a couple of days ago, did much media attention. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 33:22
 So it is safe to argue that football and nationalism is very strong in Korea and football, but there's a difference between football and nationalism versus football and regionalism in Korea. The idea of regionalism isn't really that strong or we can say that it is fairly weak. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 33:47
 It is always the nation first, then region. And so nationalism versus regionalism argument, because of that, a lot of local clubs, it is really hard to secure the funding from their local government. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 34:06
 So the notion that sports brings the community together, the notion that the sports creates a civic bonding, the notion that sports generates intangible benefit in a local community, doesn't really get much support in reality, especially when we talk about the football in a regional context. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 34:28
 Overall, I think we see different context in football and the politics, nations in APEC region, although they share similar cultural values, and yet they present very complicated geopolitical ideology. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 34:45
 And of course, football is not exception to that. Each domestic league and national team and football federation tries to position themselves with competitive advantages and certainly operates in a very different ways, which I think there is a great value to dive into more if you're a scholar or a policymaker. 
 
 

Guy Burton 35:08
 If we were to ask the type of work that you're currently doing, I mean, are you sort of working in this particular field or are the aspects of your work related to football that our listeners might be, you know, should look out for? 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 35:20
 A couple of my colleagues and I are working on a couple of different projects right now. The first one is about the club ownership model. So we talk about here J -League examples, K -League examples. We also are very interested in what is happening outside of the APEC region. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 35:41
 We see a multi -club ownership model very clearly. That's not just about in the European football context. It covers a number of different clubs globally. So we are researching right now how to come up with research questions to unpack in different clubs in the ownership model. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 36:09
 The other one is looking at the global talent flow. So we talk about of course talent migration, but at the same time in a more structured way. So if you think about how Red Bull is sending their talent between Salzburg in Austria and Leipzig in Germany, it's not just about the players. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 36:39
 It looks like it involves the coaching staff, technical directors, and some other workforce working behind the scene. So we are interested in some of those global talent flows. Whether it is from within the Europe or from Europe to Asia or reverse, we are interested in that kind of flow. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 37:00
 So a couple of different projects underway right now, which I am very excited about. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 37:06
 These are both really, really relevant to what we are interested in. So we'll let you go now. Well, thank you very much. But you have to promise that you're going to come back later on and tell us a bit about these projects in the next episode. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 37:17
 Do we have the promise? 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 37:20
 More than happy to talk about that project. And I would hopefully talk more about the Chelsea Football Club and how great we are in the English Premier League. So please call me back. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 37:32
 We'll definitely do that. Well, thank you very much. We've covered so much ground from China to Korea to Japan has been really, really invaluable. And it's and we've learned so much. And I'm really grateful. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us. 
 
 

Seungbum Lee 37:47
 Thanks for your invitation and thank you very much. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 37:48
 Guy, is there something else we need to remind the listeners? 
 
 

Guy Burton 37:52
 Yes, I suppose we need to just remind listeners that if you've got this far, it's wonderful, but we also would really encourage and invite you to write a review, to subscribe, to share the podcast and keep an eye out for us and to just keep listening. 
 
 

Guy Burton 38:09
 And if you have ideas as well of topics that you would like to see discussed and explored, potential guests that we should reach out to, we'd be very interested to hear from you. Because obviously we have a lot of ideas of stuff that we want to do, as you've just heard, we've mentioned to Seungbum that we'd like to have him back. 
 
 

Guy Burton 38:27
 But it would also be great to try and generate a little bit of listener content as well. So with that in mind, I think, well, I'll hand back to you, Francesco. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 38:37
 Well, I think we can close the episode. Thank you very much. Thank you, Seungbum, so much for joining us. And we'll speak to our listeners next week.