Foundations laid for goal-den future
Signs positive for Chinese game as soccer shake-up kicks in
Despite recent setbacks on the international stage, China’s soccer push has hit the back of the net on numerous other fronts to give long-suffering fans renewed hope for the future.
In the wake of another failed World Cup qualification campaign by Team China, the latest disappointment on the pitch was Shanghai SIPG’s 2-1 aggregate loss to Japan's Urawa Red Diamonds in Wednesday’s AFC Champions League semifinal.
However, a sense of perspective is needed when evaluating the impact of the national plan to develop the country into a world soccer power by 2050 — the centerpiece of the central government’s nationwide sports reforms.
A decade ago, for example, a deep run by a Chinese team in Asia’s premier club tournament was virtually unheard of, while Guangzhou Evergrande became the first Chinese side to lift the trophy in 2013.
Nowadays the likes of Evergrande and SIPG are in the mix for glory every season, while the Chinese Super League has greatly expanded its profile, fan base and revenues.
Chinese Football Association Chairman Cai Zhenhua has stressed that international results shouldn’t be the sole measure of the reforms.
“The improvements in many fundamental aspects of the game should not be tarnished by matches lost at elite level, especially those of the national team,” Cai said earlier this year.
Inspired by ardent soccer fan President Xi Jinping, the country's sports governing body unveiled a long-term soccer development strategy in April 2016 aimed at turning China into a dominant power in Asia by 2030 and a leading global competitor two decades later.
That followed an earlier initiative, approved by Xi in March 2015, tasked with turning China into a world champion one day.
Two and a half years later, those seeds of change are bearing fruit at grassroots level.
A four-tier school league system has been established by the Ministry of Education and the CFA, with an estimated 20,000 schools offering specialized soccer training by the end of 2017. It’s envisaged that number will be 40,000 by 2020.
Education authorities, with support from regional soccer associations, had given training courses to more than 200,000 school principals, physical education teachers and referees by the end of 2016, while 243 foreign coaches were hired to assist PE staff at schools, according to Minister of Education Chen Baosheng.
That sort of root-andbranch change is how China should focus its efforts, says Pei Encai, a former national women's team coach who now runs a youth training program in Beijing.
“Rather than looking to dominate globally one day, we should focus more on implementing all necessary meas- ures to build a solid base for the game from the bottom up," he said.
In its final World Cup qualifier last month, Team China defeated Qatar 2-1 but failed to advance to the finals for the fourth time in succession due to poor performances in previous matches.
Most fans, though, remain philosophical about the national team’s travails.
“Missing out on another World Cup is disappointing, but we recognize that the gap between us and the world powers is so big that we have to stick to pushing the reform forward consistently,” said Wang Qi, chairman of a Beijing-based Team China fan club.
The CSL’s rise, meanwhile, owes much to a management overhaul, which saw the General Administration of Sport of China relinquish its power over the CFA in early 2016, making the association a fullfledged non-governmental organization.
The revamped CFA has handed its decision-making power to a company comprising of professional executives and club shareholders. And the financial gains have been impressive.
According to auditing firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, the CSL’s sponsorship revenue reached 375 million yuan ($54 million) in 2016, with an estimated 20 percent growth forecast by the end of the year.
CSL clubs spent $410 million during the 2016-17 winter transfer window, while the league’s media rights from 2016 to 2020 sold for a cool 8 billion yuan ($1.16 billion).
“A robust elite league system is the foundation for results at national level,” said Tan Jianxiang, a sports sociology professor at South China Normal University. “The effort of professionalizing the league shall never be slowed down.”
Encouragingly, it seems the same can be said for the reforms as a whole.