Manchester United Players Frustrated With China Tour

Manchester United’s players and 70 accompanying staff left Beijing’s Sheraton Grand in three coaches shortly after 10 p.m. on Monday evening, bound for the airport and a chartered flight back to Manchester, courtesy of club sponsor Aeroflot.

Fans waiting behind barriers craned their necks and lifted their camera phones to capture a glimpse of their heroes. Screams greeted the appearance of any players. Many of the supporters wore red United home shirts and had travelled to north Beijing to see the first Manchester derby played outside England.

Instead, after the cancellation of Monday’s friendly, fans stood in the lobby of a luxury hotel that overlooked the third of Beijing’s four ring roads. They eyed up anyone in the United staff uniform of black t-shirt, jogging pants and black trainers, wondering if they were famous.

Part of a statement from the match organisers read: “To acknowledge the support of fans, players of Manchester City FC and Manchester United will record and distribute a thank you video for fans in China before departing Beijing.”

“We don’t want a video, we want to see the players for real,” said Jian, 19, as he scoured the hotel for footballing celebrities. Few recognised Paddy Crerand, but those who did, including fans from Saudi Arabia, Dubai, London and Manchester, were afforded time by the United legend.

Crerand has seen much since signing for United as a player in 1963, but never a game on the other side of the world being cancelled. Close to Crerand sat a dozen staff from MUTV, United’s in-house channel, which had been set to show its biggest ever-live, exclusive game.

United need to start playing football after a frustrating stop-start tour, which was originally agreed to by Louis van Gaal, who ceded to commercial pressures for a shortened eight-day, two game trip. The Dutchman was planning for preseason as late as FA Cup final week in May; his staff convinced they were going to return for this season before he was sacked.

Van Gaal wasn’t a fan of long-distance trips and nor is his successor Jose Mourinho. United’s new manager mentioned the commercial aspect of the tour in his first press conference and never stopped mentioning it, each time with more frustration as things went wrong.

Following a 4-1 defeat to Borussia Dortmund on Friday, half of his players were delayed by storms as they travelled north to Beijing, with their flight diverted. Upon arrival, Mourinho arrived to give a press conference in a room so warm it could have passed for a sauna.

The meeting with the media was then shifted pitch side amid farcical circumstances as British journalists, who had travelled around the world to cover the tour, struggled to get close enough to ask questions.

Mourinho has made a very positive first impression with United’s players, staff and the media on the tour and is a man confident in his own position as the club’s figurehead.

He knew of the problems with the Beijing pitch well before the match as did City, who sent their deputy head groundsman to try and assist with preparation 10 days before the game. His advice, though, was ignored by staff at the Bird’s Nest stadium, which is not normally used for football.

Torrential rain last week made matters much worse; there was flooding in Beijing and sandbags were required in metro stations. By Sunday, a planned training session by the two clubs was shifted to another stadium, though some fans still went to the Bird’s Nest. One I spoke to had travelled from Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia.

The 1,000 or so supporters who did make it to the re-arranged training session in the rain at the Olympics Sports Centre were left underwhelmed as United’s players trained mostly on the far side of the pitch and didn’t sign autographs.

By Sunday, such was the desperation that groundsmen sprayed the pitch green. It looked a mess, a newly-laid pitch composed of rough squares which moved under pressure, like a fireside rug.

The last time United played in the Chinese capital was 2005, when heat and humidity were the issues. In front of a disappointing crowd of 24,224, just over a third of the capacity of the Workers’ Stadium, Sir Alex Ferguson’s side beat Beijing Hyundai 3-0.

Their third goal was scored by Park Ji-Sung, who was embarking on what would prove to be a successful United career. The South Korean is now a resident of London and works as a club ambassador. On Sunday, a suited Park was in the team hotel, happy to pose for photos with fans.

United will return to China. It might not be for a couple of years and the next trip will come with assurances of better organisation, but it is too big a market for them not to revisit. The club-owning Glazer family know this and were present throughout this tour. United have chosen a route, one that is being adopted by all the biggest clubs, to appeal to as many fans and sponsors on a global scale.

Preseason games are lucrative, not only for the match fees, but also the media exposure in host countries. Fans see their heroes live and major sponsors get exposure for their brand. Further, while Park and other ambassadors are popular, there’s demand to see current stars in the flesh, even if it’s only at commercial events, which was the role of club captain Wayne Rooney in China.

Problems persist on tours because so many factors are out of clubs’ control. Even in the United States, which the players, managers and clubs prefer because of a better climate and training facilities, there have been issues. In 2014, for example, Los Angeles traffic meant United took two hours to reach training in Pasadena, while the heat and altitude in Denver also caused concern.

Ferguson liked friendlies in South Africa, where the southern hemisphere winter weather is cooler and there is just one hour of time difference from England. However, while stadiums there are big enough to host United, the rand is weak and a domestic population of 55 million cannot compete with more than 300 million in the U.S. or over a billion in China. United will go where the money is and there’s plenty in China.