Chinese soccer embarks on new journey

A football player from China's top club Guangzhou Evergrande celebrates victory after a match. [File photo]

BEIJING - China vows to shake off the tag as a soccer underachiever with an overall reform plan recently endorsed by the Chinese government and a new league season kicking off on Saturday.

There have been signs of recovery in the game. China's top clubs, Guangzhou Evergrande, Beijing Guoan, Shandong Luneng and Guangzhou Fuli, all opened with victory in the AFC Champions League last month.

Luneng and Fuli lost their second games but Guangzhou and Beijing both won to top their respective group.

Evergrande, the former winners of the tournament, showed courage and strength on Wednesday by beating defending champions Western Sydney Wanderers 3-2 in the Champions League's longest stoppage time that lasted 17 minutes, giving Fabio Cannavaro a promising start after his predecessor Marcello Lippi resigned a week ago.

In addition to positive performances by clubs, the Chinese men's team showed their teeth on big stage as they won three straight group games at the Asian Cup, for the first time in their 11 appearances in the continent's premier event, before going down 2-0 to hosts and eventual champions Australia in the quarter-finals.

REFORM PLAN

The new season of the Super League opened in the wake of an ambitious reform plan approved by the Chinese government to raise the standard of Chinese soccer.

"We must develop and revitalize soccer to ensure we are a strong nation of sports," according to a statement issued after a meeting of the central reform leading group that is chaired by President Xi Jinping.

China must overcome its "defective system", which has impeded the development of the game, and provide better "institutional guarantees" for its progress, the statement said.

"More efforts should be made at the grassroots level to nurture young talents and to ensure the integration of professional clubs, school teams and amateur teams," said the statement.

Action has been taken already. In November 2014, the Ministry of Education declared soccer a compulsory part of the national curriculum and announced an ambitious plan that includes the installation of pitches and training facilities at 20,000 schools by 2017 with the goal of getting more than 100,000 kids engaged in the game.

HIGH SPENDING

For the Super League, this winter is not cold.

To prepare for the new season, big clubs went on a shopping spree to sign top players, mainly from South America.

According to the statistics released by Germany's Transfer Market, when the Chinese winter transfer window closed, the Super League spent a record 108 million euros to buy players and coaches on the 2014/2015 transfer market.

The Chinese league, which turned professional only 20 years ago, stands only second to the English Premier League in terms of the money spent on transfers, beating most of the top-flight leagues around the world.

With the boost of investments, the quality of overseas players has improved in recent seasons, which not only lifts the competitive level of the league but also helps to attract more fans to support local teams.

Among the foreign big names, Brazilian players are most popular with Chinese clubs.

Shandong Luneng striker Diego Tardelli on Thursday became the first Brazilian national team player to be called up from a Chinese club when Dunga announced his squad for friendlies against France and Chile.

The 29-year-old Tardelli, who recently switched from Atletico Mineiro to Luneng with a transfer fee of 5.5 million euros, has reunited with his former Atletico head coach Cuca at his new club.

"It's the economic landscape of globalized soccer," Dunga said during a press conference in Rio de Janeiro.

"Europe has countries that can no longer afford to buy Brazilian players, and China is investing heavily in soccer. And not just in players, they have many Brazilian coaches also."

According to the Brazilian newspaper FOLHA DE SAO PAULO, the Super League, for the first time in history, has become the league that spends most to buy players from the Brazilian league.

"We hope the quality and the competitive level of the league is going to improve. Then, more and more people will find it a delight to watch and buy tickets to the stadium," said Ma Chengquan, the director of Chinese professional leagues.

"Only by building a healthy and first-class league can Chinese soccer and the national teams improve."