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China plans to become soccer powerhouse

Agoraphobic

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PRC is really coming out of the bamboo curtain to be abreast with the rest of the world. Soccer, the world's game, is the next target on the crosshairs according to this report. President Xi himself is behind the effort to increase the profile of the sport in the country. It is possible that you guys will soon be betting on games in the Chinese soccer league.

Cheers!


http://www.ibtimes.com/china-announ...st-world-cup-part-xi-jinpings-chinese-1849208

China Announces Plan To Become Soccer Powerhouse, Host World Cup As Part Of Xi Jinping’s 'Chinese Dream'

By Duncan Hewitt on March 17 2015 5:21 AM EDT

SHANGHAI -- The Chinese government is taking soccer very seriously these days. Late last year it announced that the sport would become a mandatory part of China’s school curriculum, complete with new textbooks to explain the game to students. Last month, the country’s soccer-loving president, Xi Jinping, and other senior officials attended a meeting of China’s “central reform leading group," where they discussed the future of the game. Now the results of these deliberations have been released in the form of a 50-point plan that seeks to turn the country into a “soccer powerhouse.”
The plan lays out medium- to long-term goals for everything from returning the country’s women’s soccer team to its former preeminence, to seeing the Chinese men’s team qualify for the World Cup for only the second time, and, eventually, bidding to host the tournament. It also seeks to address grassroots problems, promising to establish 50,000 soccer schools in the country in the next decade, and to set up a soccer lottery to help fund them. In a further significant step, it pledges to ‘professionalize’ the Chinese Football Association (CFA), by separating it from China’s much-criticized sports bureaucracy.
The plan appears to reflect the personal interests of Xi, who last year took time out of a state visit to Germany to watch a Chinese youth team play in Berlin. But it may also be a smart political move. Although he has taken a generally tough line on political dissent and civil society, Xi has also sought repeatedly to show that he is in touch with the concerns of ordinary Chinese citizens. He will be well aware that, in a nation with the world’s highest number of soccer supporters, there is much frustration at the poor performance of the men’s national team -- currently ranked eighty-third in the world -- and anger at the bureaucracy that is often blamed for its failures. Sport is one of the few areas of Chinese life where media and Internet users are relatively free to criticize the authorities.
Indeed, the official announcement of the plan explicitly connected it to one of Xi’s most populist slogans, ‘the Chinese dream,’ emphasizing that “implementing the Chinese dream of the glorious revival of the Chinese nation is intricately linked with the dream of China becoming a soccer powerhouse.” The Southern Metropolis Daily, a liberal Guangzhou-based newspaper, also noted that one of the reasons for promoting the sport among school children was that it encourages “team spirit and the ability to work together.”
Yet overcoming cynicism may take time. The Guangzhou newspaper commented drily that the plan “depicts a very beautiful future” for the Chinese men’s soccer team but the reputation of the sport has been badly damaged by a series of corruption scandals. Several stars of the Chinese team, which took part in the 2002 World Cup -- the only time the country has qualified (helped by the fact that Asian giants Japan and South Korea had qualified automatically as co-hosts) -- were later jailed for match-fixing, while two former vice chairmen of the CFA and the country’s former top soccer referee are also in jail.
Disillusionment at the Chinese soccer league has also been fueled by frequent changes in club ownership, often leading teams to change their names, and sometimes even the city where they are based, whenever they get a new sponsor. For such reasons, experts say soccer has lost its draw among the young generation: the number of schools specializing in soccer has reportedly dropped significantly since the 1990s, and, as coach Terry Singh noted on Tuesday, fewer Chinese children now “aspire to be football stars.”
Some experts have welcomed the plan to give the CFA more autonomy as a major step forward, however. Commentator Wang Dazhao told the Global Times newspaper that reducing government intervention in the sport's management would “allow professionals to build a system consistent with soccer development.” The Southern Metropolis Daily also hailed a call for local governments to back their local teams, saying this would help in issues such as policing for soccer matches and stadium construction.
The plan comes at a time when there have been some hints of progress in Chinese soccer’s international competitiveness. Guangzhou Evergrande, owned by one of China’s richest property developers, won the Asian Champions League in 2013 under former World Cup-winning coach Marcello Lippi. Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group subsequently bought a 50 percent stake in the club, which is now known as Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao.
China’s men’s national team surprised many of its supporters by winning three games in a row at the recent Asian Cup tournament, before losing to hosts and eventual champions Australia. Evergrande has also set up an academy for young players, with links to Spanish giants Real Madrid, while China’s richest man, Wanda Group boss Wang Jianlin, recently bought a 20 percent stake in current Spanish champions Atletico Madrid, and has explicitly stated his aim to use the link to boost the quality of Chinese football.
Yet China’s leading sports newspaper, Titan Sports, warned on Tuesday that the sport would require long-term support from the authorities to ensure the proposed reforms really take root at the local level. It also noted that everything from China’s strict urban residency rules to the tax system currently work against the professionalization of soccer, and it warned that if towns across China rushed to develop professional clubs in response to the plan, this could lead to a wastage of resources.
Xi’s recent discussion with Britain’s Prince William about what China could learn from soccer in the U.K. may be a reminder that money does not always bring success. Britain has the richest league in the world in the shape of the English Premier League, yet England’s national team has repeatedly disappointed its fans in major tournaments. Many Chinese soccer fans will be looking for more structural change at the grassroots before they allow themselves to dream of a spot at the World Cup finals.
 

laksaboy

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Sounds like Goal 2010, on a grander scale. :biggrin:

Japan, Korea, Australia and the mideast countries are far ahead in development.

Another PRC noveau riche wet dream thinking that throwing money at things fixes problems. :rolleyes:
 

50000

Alfrescian
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they will introduce China Pools after that and rake in the $$$$$, chinks will bet on anything....
 

HTOLAS

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With a president whose surname (XI, as in '11') embodies the essence of football, I understand the desire.
 

yellowarse

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China may have invented football, but it can only become a world power if it first gets rid of all the corruption in its domestic league, import good foreign coaches, raise the standards of its officials, revamp its youth development scheme, send more players abroad to superior leagues.

Corruption is the main reason why their game has lagged behind the Koreans and Japanese. Quite a few Chinese play in the Korean league and they're as good as, if not better than, the Koreans. The top players in the Chinese league are also of a high calibre, but it's the corruption plaguing the teams and match officials that hamstrings the sport's development. Matches are thrown away or fixed, players feign injury, referees blatantly side with one team or the other, morale is low because when a few players are on the take teamwork gets thrown out of the window. The coaches can't do a damned thing, and the authorities are tearing their hair out figuring out how to solve the problem.

Take away corruption, and the China with its vast pool of talent will soon leapfrog over the other Asian teams to be on a par with the Europeans and South Americans.
 

Mancini

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Atletico Madrid 1 Bayer Leverkusen 0

20856974ee1147df0cccffd7fddf05d717eb3476.jpg





 
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Agoraphobic

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Loyal
The basic foundation has already been laid and the country is well and running. It is now time for the quality of life in PRC to be elevated so that her citizens can look forward to a better life. It is a big country with a long history (with both good and bad periods). Once hunger, shelter is taken care of, arts and recreation will follow. So even if there is going to be corruption and all the negative aspects of human traits, life has to go on. It will be nice to see how the Chinese league develops. I wonder if the soccer fans in Singapore will be drawn to watch the Chinese teams, or will they stay loyal to the local teams like Toa Payoh, Queenstown, Sembawang?

Cheers!
 

M0TAR0

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I wonder if the soccer fans in Singapore will be drawn to watch the Chinese teams, or will they stay loyal to the local teams like Toa Payoh, Queenstown, Sembawang?

Cheers!

Hahahaha

You can't fool me with your online persona.

neither can lifeafter41
 

Sideswipe

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is Football a very popular sport in China ? think the Chinese are not crazy over baseball like the Japanese and the Koreans.
 

Agoraphobic

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It should be growing in popularity, and besides, soccer is an easy game to understand, entertaining as a spectator sport, and inexpensive to take up (unlike golf.) I once was talking with a PRC colleague a few years ago, and he explained that Table Tennis was popular in China because it is inexpensive. All one needs is a wooden bat, and a table surface, and up to that time, people in China were not well-off. Now, things have changed, and they are exposed to things and events in the outside world. Soccer is enjoyed all over the world, so why not in China? Not long ago, that Ivory-Coast/Chelsea player Drogba signed up with a Chinese team too! I think it will grow there.

Cheers!

is Football a very popular sport in China ? think the Chinese are not crazy over baseball like the Japanese and the Koreans.
 

Sinkie

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China will succeed in this, no problem at all...........if all else fails, it can put together a PLA football team. UNBEATABLE!!!

Don't mess with the PLA soldiers!!!
 
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