Nation sets 2050 goal for soccer turnaround

With China still struggling to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, the country has set a goal of becoming a world-leading soccer power by 2050 through youth promotion and league development.

A long-term development outline was announced on Monday aimed at China becoming a dominant soccer power in Asia by 2030 and a leading world competitor two decades later.

This follows an ambitious soccer reform plan inspired by President Xi Jinping in March last year. Xi wants to see China qualify for the World Cup finals again and eventually host and win the prestigious tournament. China qualified for the finals for the first time in 2002.

Although reaching the final Asian qualifying round for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, China appears unlikely to make further progress, being an underdog in a 12-strong pool with only four places to Russia available.

Despite the national team's slow progress, the government encouragement has seen the return of a moderate level of youth participation in the sport and has raised the domestic league's profile internationally.

A four-tier school league system has been set up by the Ministry of Education and the Chinese Football Association, with more than 100,000 school matches organized last year, involving 2.7 million student players.

The Chinese Super League, the country's top professional competition, lured foreign players worth $373 million in transfer fees to play during the 2016 season. The league's broadcasting rights for the next five years sold for a staggering 8 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) last year.

Pei Encai, a former national women's team coach who now runs a youth training program, said the attention being paid by the central government to improving Chinese soccer is "really inspiring, and the ambitious targets have started a push for progress".

However, Pei said much remains to be done if China is to match the world's best soccer powers, given the domestic game's relatively weak grassroots foundation and lack of facilities and coaching expertise.

"Rather than looking to dominate globally one day, we should focus more on implementing all necessary measures to build a solid base for the game from the bottom up," he said.

Tan Jianxiang, a sports sociology professor at South China Normal University, said the Chinese Super League's semi-administrative management needs to be revamped to establish a more professional model adopting international practice.

"The CFA should relinquish its dominating role in CSL operations to allow decisions made by club shareholders and professional executives to take precedence. As long as the league is both supervised and operated primarily by government officials (from the CFA), it won't be as professional as it is supposed to be," he said.

The overall development plan for Chinese soccer

Major short-term targets (2016-2020)

Social participation

Establishing a three-tier amateur competition system that includes grassroots club teams in 100 cities and involves more than 50 million participants

Fields

Building 70,000 soccer fields through refurbishment, transformation and new construction to provide half a field for every 10,000 participants on average

Training

Strengthening the development of local coaches and trainers by offering training to 10,000 personnel

Clubs

Developing two or three Chinese professional clubs that dominate in Asia and are well known globally, while expanding the appeal of China's top professional league worldwide

School system

Increasing the number of schools specializing in soccer education from more than 8,000 to 20,000, encouraging more than 30 million primary and secondary school students to practice soccer regularly and training 5,000 school soccer instructors

sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn