‘Fake’ coaches, fixers undermine China’s ambitions

SHANGHAI: Rapacious middlemen and coaches with forged or few qualifications are trying their luck in China’s fast-growing grassroots football, imperilling its ambitions to become a major force in the sport, insiders warn.

At the behest of football-fan President Xi Jinping, for whom it is a soft-power tool, the world’s second-biggest economy is throwing resources at the game domestically.

Central to that is getting more youngsters to play at schools, clubs and academies. The education ministry plans to have 50,000 “schools characterised by soccer” by 2025.

But five people involved in youth football in the country told

they had encountered coaches with counterfeit certificates.

Just being from overseas was sometimes enough to get work, many involved in the scene said, as so-called coaches — Chinese and foreign — rush for a share of the money swilling around football in China.

Former international forward Xie Hui, now an assistant coach at Chinese Super League (CSL) champions Shanghai SIPG, said there was “a huge problem” with youth coaching.

“Even if you give them Wu Lei, they will erase (his talent), that’s the reality,” the 44-year-old told AFP, referring to the Chinese forward who recently left SIPG for Spain’s Espanyol.

“Nothing has (improved) in 20 years because there is no building (effective structure). It’s almost a desert of youth football education.”

Despite a population of 1.4 billion China have qualified for the World Cup only once, in 2002, when they exited without a point or even a goal.

President Xi’s government is pouring money into youth football, but Xie said it was often going to waste. He alleged that some schools were even making up results without playing matches.

Mario Castro, who holds a UEFA B licence from the Portuguese football federation, paints a similarly bleak picture.

“We have three huge problems in China: the fake coach, the unqualified coach and the coach without knowledge,” said Castro, who has worked in China since 2016 and is technical director at a Shenzhen-based tie-up with toptier French club Toulouse.

The Chinese Football Association (CFA) declined to comment on the situation when approached by AFP.

But the organisation last month issued a set of rules in an effort to regulate the chaotic coaching market — a tacit admission that a problem exists.

Tom Byer, a renowned coach with vast experience of grassroots football in several countries, said the problem of illequipped coaches was not unique to China.

Among those, according to several figures in the sport, are middlemen given money by local authorities to find foreign coaches for schools, only to keep as much as half of it and pay the coach the rest.

The greatly diminished wage means that experienced or wellqualified coaches often do not come to China.