Xi Jingping's Vision 2025 to make China the best football nation in Asia and one of the best in the world may have started it's second phase, a redirection from its previous model as most clubs in the China Super League are facing financial hard times. The money splash used to lure superstars and top managers from Europe and South America couldn't be sustained by media rights, sponsorships and match day revenue
Following the 2014 announcement of Xi Jingping’s vision for China to create a domestic sport economy worth $800+ million by 2025, discussion has always arisen around how this might play out on the longrun, who the key players in this industry are, and what the broader geo-politic effects might be for China, and the rest of the World. Of particular focus has been the investment and efforts levied specifically toward football. This special issue brings together a selection of the more recent empirical and conceptual studies concerned with China and football.
Now, China has started to re-engineer the model and will establish up to 18 "key cities" dedicated to football by 2025, its top sports body said, as it outlined plans to be the very Asia's best by the end of the decade.
A new policy paper from the General Administration of Sport said 16-18 cities should aspire to have two professional teams and the infrastructure to match within the next four years. President Xi Jinping wants to make the world's most populous country a football superpower, but results so far have been mixed.
Youth football in the designated cities should be "wildly popular", and there must be at least one football pitch for every 10,000 people there, the policy paper said. Chinese football should also be among the best in Asia by 2030, it added.
China are currently 77th in the FIFA rankings, the ninth highest Asian team, and have only reached the World Cup once, in 2002. Writing in the People's Daily, Chinese Football Association president Chen Xuyuan said fans were not satisfied with the "status quo".
"The revitalisation and development of Chinese football has a long way to go," he admitted. After a boom period when Chinese clubs signed foreign stars for exorbitant fees, many teams have hit hard times with several going to the wall - including last year's champions, Jiangsu FC.
