China's President Xi Jinping loves football and is said to be desperate for the country to become a major power in football. He is considering bidding to host the tournament in 2030.
Several Chinese Super League teams have spent fortunes on players — Oscar (US$73m), Hulk (US$56m), Alex Teixiera (US$46m) and Jackson Martinez (US$37m) — while Carlos Tevez moved to Shanghai Shenhua in January and became the world's highest paid player on US$745,000 a week.
But their national team is frankly a joke.
Despite being coached by Marcello Lippi — who won the 2006 World Cup with Italy — they have lost to Syria and Uzbekistan and are bottom of their qualifying group with virtually no chance of qualifying.
Sono orgoglioso di annunciare l’inizio della nuova avventura in qualità di Commissario Tecnico della Nazionale Cinese. pic.twitter.com/gNMGg64pHv
— Marcello Lippi (@MisterLippi) October 22, 2016
They play South Korea, one of Asia's best teams, on March 23, and even if they win, it will be virtually impossible for them to reach Russia next year.
China has only qualified once for a World Cup — in 2002 in Japan, when they lost all three games.
Since then the professional game has grown out of all recognition and the money swishing around in the Chinese Super League is sucking in some of the best playing and coaching talent in the world.
But still, Team Dragon, as the national team is known, contains to breathe smoke, rather than fire.
The team is captained by Zheng Zhi, who at 36 is something of a veteran. He spent two years in the English Premier League with Charlton Athletic a decade ago and is now with one of China's top club sides, Guangzhou Evergrande.
The average age of the national side is around 27 and there are no signs yet of a younger "golden generation" who might start winning things for China.
Chris Atkins, a football agent and expert on Chinese football based in Guangzhou, told Sputnik:
"It takes far more time to develop players than it takes to buy foreign players.
"Any structures they're trying to put in place will take years to pay dividends in terms of player development. They're going to have to be patient."
President Xi, a big football fan, is known to be hugely frustrated.
Last year, the Chinese government published a strategy (in Chinese), in which they aimed to become a "world football superpower" by 2050, by getting 50 million children and adults playing the game by 2020. China is building 20,000 football training centers and 70,000 pitches. President Xi has said he wants China to not only host the World Cup within 15 years, but also to win it.
China are currently 86th in FIFA's world rankings — below Guinea-Bissau, Curacao and Uganda. They are even below the Faroe Islands, which has a population of 50,000 and a team entirely made up of part-time footballers.
If China does go from its current lowly position to World Cup winners, it would be a miracle, but then they managed it in track-and-field, going from nowhere to second in the overall medal tally at the 2012 Olympics.
The absence of tens of thousands of Chinese World Cup tourists will also be a blow to the hosts, Russia, although the tournament's games are all set to be sold out anyway.
Several other major nations are in danger of missing out too.
The US has been struggling in its qualification group and has a crucial game coming up against Honduras on 23 March.
Most of world football's big names — Italy, Brazil, Germany, France, Holland and England — are on course to qualify but Argentina are struggling and Turkey will almost certainly miss out.
One of the countries which appears to be looking forward to the World Cup most is Chile.
Chilean football fan Mario Moreno, better known as El Chapulín (Grasshopper), said recently he was looking forward to "the parties, the sunshine, beautiful women" in Russia next summer.
As for President Xi and the millions of football fans in China, it looks like they will have to watch it on television.
