China had a great potential to be the Asian, even the world football superpower, said Asian football chief Peter Velappan on Friday.

Speaking at the closing ceremony of the five-day Vision Asia Conference China, Velappan, general secretary of the Asian Football Association (AFC), said Chinese football is to open a new era as the development program, Vision Asia, was launched officially.

"China's developed really fast in recent years in politics, economy, culture, as well as sports. There is a new saying now in the West that 'all roads lead to China', that means China has come into a new time with goldmine to be exploited," said Velappan.

"Soccer here also has a new time as Vision Asia program was firstly introduced to the China," he added.

Vision Asia program is aimed to assist AFC members to build better administrations and finances, to market the sport batter and to pay more heed to grassroots program.

China has been selected as the first trial country for the multi-million program, with the other seven experimental countries and regions being China's Hong Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Velappan, also director of the program, pointed out that China is critically short of professional coaches.

"After the conference discussion, we found introduction of@professionalism in China is very important. China especially need more professional coaches. We cannot imagine a amateur coach could well guide a professional team," he said.

"Also we would help China from the grassroots level, training players aged 10 or below."

Velappan said after the week-long visit, he was more optimistic about the China's future and further illustrated two reasons.

"We found a lot of excellent young players in China," said Velappan. "They are so talented that we could foresee Chinese soccer on them."

"Also we can see China has wonderful football facilities, which could match to those world soccer powerhouses like France, Brazil, Germany, whatever."

Velappan believes China has a great chance to finish among the top four in next year's Asian Cup and gain the berth in the 2006 World Cup finals rounds. But for a steady future China needs to set up long-term developing target and plans.

"It's a 10-year plan, during which China wants to be an Asian superpower and the world top 20. China should get close to the goal step by step." the AFC chief added.

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