China to bring in American arena football match

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China to bring in American arena football match

(Xinhua) 09:09, November 08, 2013

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Chinese audiences are about to see a real American arena football game for the first time here in Beijing this Sunday.

It will be an exhibition match and players of the two sides are based on American's two top teams in Arena Football League (AFL) -- east Philadelphia Soul and west Arizona Diamondbacks.

This time these professional players will give their first show in China and use all the facilities made in China as well.

To ensure a fantastic performance for Chinese audiences, the two all-star teams even launched a warmup match in Honolulu before coming to Beijing, said Wu Hua, CEO of Ganlan Media International (Beijing) Co., Ltd .(GMI) on Thursday.

According to Wu, the year 2013 is really a start for China to bring in the American arena football and the in-door matches will be held with their own players next year.

"We launched professional training in May and have cultivated China's first-ever American Arena Football coaches/referees," Wu said.

With all the professional candidates, China has been building up arena football teams in six sports universities (Beijing Sports University, Tianjin University of Sport, Hebei Institute of Physical Education, Wuhan Institute of Physical Education, Shandong Sport University, Xi'an Physical Education University) around China.

"Like the CBA brought from NBA model, China will gradually develop its own arena football league," Wu said.

Wu told Xinhua that apart from the commercial running model which could bring about lots of profits for China, this energetic indoor game is also a pretty good way to improve the physical fitness and spread the sense of teamwork.

"I am a very successful businessman around the world, but football taught me team play, leadership and hard work," said Martin E. Judge, chairman of GIM.

Nicholas Davila, quarterback of the west all-star team, also said that the deep friendship with his arena football buddies values most for him and might never be found through other ways.

Rugby sevens game has even been included in China's National Game and will be included in 2016's Olympics.

The American arena football game is basically the same as American national football, besides, the former is more eyecatching for its compact field, fast transition and high score.