DING DONG AND OUT?

Last updated : 05 December 2004 By Editor

From The Guardian:

As cunning plans go, it was one of which Baldrick would have been proud. Dong Fangzhou is ambitious, willing to make sacrifices and, most important, Chinese. When Manchester United agreed a £3.5m package with Dalian Shide the men in power at Old Trafford congratulated one another on a smart piece of business. It scarcely mattered whether the young striker would ever be serious competition for Ruud van Nistelrooy. Dong could make them money, serious money.

The problem, as Baldrick used to discover, is that even best-laid plans can go belly up. Sixteen months have passed since England's wealthiest club picked out Dong from a trial of 15 Chinese teenagers, yet not only would the 19-year-old still go unrecognised if he sat in the Stretford End on any Saturday afternoon, he has hardly set pulses racing in his own country either. United wanted China to go Dong-crazy; instead, visitors to the club's restaurant and store in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, have been asking "who's that?" when they see his photograph next to those of Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs et al.

To locate him it is necessary to travel to Royal Antwerp's antiquated stadium in Belgium's equivalent of the Coca-Cola Championship. The Bosuil has been Dong's place of work since his United career began. He is a peripheral figure on an extended loan in a distinctly average team, desperately trying to convince himself that it will all work out in the end.

He is a stranger in a strange land and the language barrier is so great he generally lets others do the talking. Yet he is so generous with his time that the instinct is to hope, for his sake, that he has not been let in on the fact of how quickly English football has forgotten about him, how one Belgian sportswriter has described him as a "laughing stock" and how China's football-loving public are wondering whether he will ever actually play in England.

"I'm trying to enjoy myself," he says, via his interpreter. "It's difficult sometimes and when I first arrived I was lonely. But the thought of one day playing for Manchester United drives me on. That is why I have come to a foreign country, to improve myself and to work hard, so one day I will be good enough to play in England. I am not ready yet but that is my ambition."

United loaned Dong to Antwerp, their feeder club, in the hope that he would win his first call-up to China's national team. They are still waiting and until that time comes he can forget about moving to Manchester. An international credential is mandatory for a footballer from outside the European Union or its favoured partners in eastern Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific to obtain a work permit from the Home Office. As it stands, Dong is forbidden to play for an English club.

There is another problem: Dong's first season in Flanders coincided with Belgium's oldest club being relegated from the top division for only the third time in their 124-year history. Dong lost his form, then his confidence, then his place.

"By the end of his first season people were laughing at him," says Wim Vos, of the daily Gazet van Antwerpen. "Whenever the ball came to him, it would bounce off his knee and go in any direction. Everyone was thinking he would never make it in Belgian football, never mind England."

The United board has never concealed the fact that they deliberately looked for a Chinese player. Unlike Japan, a proven market where replica shirts fly off the shelves for high prices, China is considered an investment for the future, with the world's largest population and fastest-growing economy. United already have 25m Chinese fans and will tour the far east next summer. Rightly or wrongly, they can afford to buy and try Chinese players, even if it takes a few attempts before finding one who is good enough.

"There must be some relevance between United signing me and the club's aspiration to break into the Chinese market," Dong admitted. "They wanted someone who was young, who could be worked on and improve, and who came from China. I fit all those criteria and that is why they chose me but they do not need me to win popularity in China. They already have huge support in my country."