Football Cooperation with Britain Benefits Millions of Chinese Teenagers

In the eyes of many Chinese people, especially sports fans, Britain’s numerous well-known football teams and superstars make football Britain’s calling card. Chinese President Xi Jinping, a longtime fan of the sport, will pay a visit to Manchester City football club with British Prime Minister David Cameron during his state tour of the UK.

Xi Jinping, China’s then vice-president, kicks a football during a 2012 visit to Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland 2012.

In 2015, UK Trade & Investment organized a series of activities for entrepreneurs from China and the UK to cooperate and exchange experience through football. It is expected that Xi’s visit will not only open a golden era for China-UK relations but will also bring impetus to football cooperation between the two nations.

Hosting the World Cup and enabling the Chinese football team’s smooth entry into the world arena is a dream of generations of Chinese people. China has promoted step-by-step reforms of the football sector and has also tried to make more connections with the British football industry.

Sun Jihai, one of the China’s best footballlers, re-joins Manchester City as the Club Ambassador in September, 2015. Sun signed for Premier League side Manchester City from Dalian Shide and became the first Asia player to sign for the club.

Statistics indicate that about 51 percent of Chinese football fans are fans of Britain’s Premier League. The Premier League has now become a bridge for cooperation between the two countries, after President Xi met with Prince William in March 2015. What’s more, audiences for the Premier League in China have reached 350 million, and more and more fans are now willing to pay to watch the world’s No. 1 game.

Dada and Football -- a caricature drawn by Web users.

President Xi has mentioned that China needs to train more teenagers and talents gifted in football to develop the sport in the country.

In China, teenagers are often too pressured by their studies to have time to play football. After Guangzhou Evergrande football club won the Asian Champions League in 2013, it set up a football school with Renmin University of China that is the first of its kind in China. The team hopes that more and more talented teenagers can enter professional football teams through this model.

Pupils from the Qiujia Primary School in Wudi county, Shandong Province participate football training. In 2011, the county’s first rural school football team was established in the school.

Besides establishing football schools, China will also strengthen the training of football coaches and referees, especially in elementary and secondary schools, through a cooperation program jointly launched between the Chinese Super League and the Premier League in 2014.

So far, the program has helped train more than 800 physical education teachers and football coaches in more than 10 cities in China. It is expected that another 1.2 million Chinese teenagers will benefit from high-level football training programs by 2016.