00:00For many years, China's men's national football team has been a source of deep disappointment
00:09for fans, materials for satire, and more recently, the subject of crime stories on national television.
00:28As the Paris Olympics kick off, hundreds of Chinese athletes are once again competing
00:34for gold, but not the men's football team.
00:37They were eliminated in the qualifying rounds.
00:40So, for a country of 1.4 billion that has produced so many Olympic medalists, why can't
00:47China find 11 players who can excel at the beautiful game?
00:56To get a sense of how dire people think the situation is, here is the most circulated
01:02rant about Chinese football.
01:21Fan was part of China's 2002 World Cup squad.
01:25The only Chinese men's side to ever reach the World Cup finals.
01:30Back then, China's football team was ranked 63rd in the world, but in 2024, it has dropped
01:37to 88th, behind countries like Haiti and Curaçao, not to mention its neighbors Japan and South
01:45Korea.
01:47Since 2019, the Chinese men's national team has had five head coaches.
01:53Fan's interview was even broadcast on a state-owned television channel in Shanghai.
01:59Such sharp criticism of a national team on official media is rare in China.
02:05In 2022, the men's national team would go on to fulfill Fan's pessimistic prophecy when
02:11it lost to Vietnam for the first time in its history.
02:18Contrary to popular belief, football just isn't that popular in China.
02:22Compared with other countries, not many Chinese people actually play the game.
02:48In 2016, the Chinese government published a blueprint for the nation's football development.
02:59Authorities vowed to build 20,000 football schools, build over 70,000 football pitches,
03:05train over 50 million players, of which 30 million would be elementary and high school
03:11students.
03:12The main aim was for China to become a football superpower by 2050.
03:18On paper, a lot of these goals were accomplished.
03:22The country had over 120,000 football pitches as of 2021, 30,000 schools with football as
03:30part of the curriculum and regular matches of the 55 million students playing football.
03:40But while those targets have been met, the country's national football program has not
03:45seen significant improvements.
03:47Experts said the problem lies in how the policies and reforms have been implemented.
03:53Like many other economic and industrial plans in China, sports programs follow a top-down
03:59approach.
04:00That means the government hands down and outlines with goals for related bodies to accomplish.
04:06This approach succeeded in delivering a world-class infrastructure network and building world-dominating
04:12electric vehicles, but not a world-class football team.
04:16People basically take signals from above.
04:20Football is the exact opposite in terms of how it normally develops.
04:23It would be like a kind of KPI approach.
04:25Have you developed five good players in the past year tick?
04:28Have you invested X amount in the system in your local area tick?
04:33Have you incorporated football in your curriculum?
04:35How many hours have you put in it?
04:38It needs to be arranged in such a way that people have the space.
04:46This kind of approach will sometimes result in school participation in football that looks
04:51like this.
04:56China's grueling exam-oriented education system also discourages participation.
05:02Today media reported many students dropped out of youth football programs because of
05:07academic pressure.
05:14I think the culture definitely plays a big part of that.
05:18To many in China, the education is always prioritized.
05:22There's not a very clear path to succeed in football as a young player.
05:27So many families, they probably don't want their kids to take the risk.
05:32In short, the huge investments never materialize into a steady stream of young players.
05:44But Chinese football did have its moment after Beijing vowed staunch support for the sport.
05:50In the years that followed, an astronomical amount of money flooded China's football clubs.
05:56In January 2017, Chinese clubs lavished over US$438 million on players,
06:04dwarfing the US$268 million spent by teams in the English Premier League.
06:12Clubs built giant football stadiums that could accommodate as many as 100,000 fans,
06:18recruited international football stars like Brazilian footballer Oscar from Chelsea,
06:23and set up top football schools.
06:25These clubs would go on to win not only titles in China, but also top tournaments such as the AFC Cup.
06:32For a moment, it seemed China could buy its way into world domination.
06:37We are the champions!
06:39Guangzhou is the champion!
06:40Yeah!
06:43But then in 2021, a crisis developed in China's property sector.
06:50At the time, 10 out of 16 clubs in the Chinese Super League were at least partly owned by real estate companies.
06:59There was absolutely no way they could possibly make this money back.
07:01You're talking most clubs are selling a season ticket for less than a thousand renminbi.
07:06You just compare that with the players' salaries, investment.
07:09The Rose High Profile case was Evergrande, owner of Guangzhou FC.
07:14After it shocked the world with its huge debt and thousands of unfinished apartment blocks,
07:20most of the football stars left and construction of the team's new stadium halted.
07:26And the Chinese Super League 2021 champion Jiangsu FC just simply folded,
07:32because its owner was in a financial mess after investing billions into one of Evergrande's subsidiaries
07:39and declining business within itself.
07:41The main problem is that the investment was not for football's sake.
07:44They would put money into the football clubs.
07:47It wasn't because they had a real genuine love for football or even the desire to really see Chinese football improve.
07:52They just thought this was a way to help them get ahead with their business or political aspirations.
07:57But the bubble created by disgraced property moguls is not the sole cause of China's football woes.
08:03Experts suggest the laser focus on the national team is actually counterproductive.
08:12The Chinese Super League is occasionally interrupted by the national team's training camps,
08:18which can sometimes last more than a month.
08:20And in some instances, clubs' performers suffer because their top players were summoned to the national team.
08:29The national team really needs a system underneath it which generates talents for the national team.
08:35When you play with a national team, you're training for two weeks,
08:37but training is not as good as playing an actual real game.
08:40If you make a local football club successful,
08:43then this is a way to advertise a potential career in football for all the kids who live in this part of China.
08:55Perhaps the hope for Chinese football lies in this small town in the nation's southwestern province of Guizhou.
09:03The Village Football League has grown from friendly matches between villages
09:08to a national event that has movie stars and even retired international players,
09:14such as Kaka taking turns on the pitch.
09:30I think there are many other ways we can promote the grassroots participation.
09:35This does not only need to happen in the school or in the football academies.
09:40And it's important to see how the people can leverage the football to benefit other sectors such as tourism,
09:47and also like the education, so we can get more stakeholders involved to grow the sport collectively.
09:56Whether China's men's football team can become a serious contender on the world stage remains to be seen.
10:02But here, the sport seems to have returned to its purest form – joy, passion and excitement.
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