China has a plan. Its president, Xi Jinping, loves football. The objective, to be among the top eight before 2025. And to organize the 2031 World Cup being candidates for the title. Innovation, planning, attracting talent and financing the training of its players abroad, in its roadmap. Alibaba already supports it with €139 million.
Since the Asian giant’s women’s team began kicking the ball in 1984, they have become continental champions twelve times, three times in the Asian Games and another nine in the Asian Cup, the last one in February.
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At a global level, his greatest achievements have not gone beyond two runner-up finishes, one Olympic and one World Cup in the glorious 90s of the last century for the women’s team, which marked the beginning of almost two decades of journey in the football desert.
PLAN TO REACH SUPREMACY
To continue with the growth developed in recent years within football in general, China presented in October a project to focus part of these efforts exclusively on the female sector of the beautiful game.
The ten-year plan, whose main claim is the organization of the 2031 World Cup in Chinese territory, has agreed to different organizations such as the Ministries of Education, Finance or the Chinese Football Association (CFA, acronym in English). ).
Before 2025 they want to be among the top eight positions in the 2023 World Cup and the 2024 Olympic Gamessubsequently reaching the first four places in the same competitions before 2030, to reach the aforementioned 2031 tournament as clear contenders for the title.
In turn, they intend to implement a rule of access to the Chinese Super League in which any club that wants to participate must have its relevant section for women to help professionalize women’s football.
Prioritizing physical exercise and following the dubious example of “success” in men’s football are the controversial aspects to highlight of the objective set to innovate the concept of trainingin addition to wanting to “import” talent with international competitions on Chinese soil and finance the “export” of Chinese players to leagues abroad.
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RAIN OF MILLIONS FROM THE BUSINESS FIELD
The strategy presented just after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China (PCCh), where renowned soccer fan Xi Jinping was re-elected for an unprecedented third term among his predecessors, does not present economic figures to carry out its objectives.
But it would be expected that they would take advantage of the support budget launched by the technology company Alipay, belonging to the giant Alibaba, with its campaign for women’s soccer of 1,000 million yuan (137 million dollars, 139 million euros) to ten years that began to be used in 2019.
The 2020 numbers presented by the CFA, after investing the first 100 million yuan (13.7 million dollars, 13.9 million euros), showed a clear positive evolution, at least in the quantifiable field.
After 52 weeks, the training teams for young footballers went from 62 to 136, an increase of 119%, with a total of 2,995 future promises enrolled in themafter passing through 369 training centers distributed among primary schools, secondary schools and institutes.
A tiny amount invested compared to the 30 million yuan (4.1 million dollars, 4.2 million euros) that the women’s team pocketed when proclaimed continental champion after coming back from two goals against last February.
“Please pay twice as much in bonuses to the women’s soccer team compared to the men’s soccer team!” wrote Huang Jianxiang, a famous Chinese soccer commentator, on his Weibo account – equivalent to Twitter, censored in China – after the feat of the selection.
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RESULTS ABOVE EVERYTHING
The project also emphasizes the need to create a football environment and culture in women’s society that allows the goals set to be achieved.
In other words, reach those who have nothing to do with the privileged ones who will aspire to represent the Asian giant with the colors of the national team.
A football of fans, or not so much, that tiptoes through the more than 40 points elaborated in the plan to promote this sport.
“They have to learn to have fun and not only think about winning,” Paul Major, the organizer of the international league, told EFE. for women in Beijing, which has as many teams of foreign players as Chinese, as the biggest problem facing Chinese women’s football.
A point of view shared by Xu Zhibin, Chinese coach of three amateur women’s teams in the aforementioned competition in addition to two university teams in the capital, who told EFE that “some of the girls are learning to enjoy a sporting event for the first time in their livesa whole new world has opened up for them.”
Xu added that “the obsolete social status of women makes women’s sport nothing more than a macro strategy for Olympic medals,” which, in her opinion, “makes few women practice any sport, especially those that are difficult to master or that require more players to play as a team.”
