A coach teaches children skills of playing football in Shanghai on March 27, 2016. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Xi's plan to develop China's soccer

"Youth is key to China's football, as late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping said, but it takes time to gain results…", said Xi, when he discussed youth soccer with Edwin van der Sar, former Netherlands' national team goalkeeper, at a state banquet during his visit to the Netherlands, on March 22, 2014.

An overall plan came out the following year. In February 2015, a meeting of China's Leading Group for Deepening Overall Reform, headed by Xi, approved a reform plan to boost every area of soccer from playgrounds to stadiums and said institutional flaws hindering the game's development must be tackled.

The plan calls for increased public involvement and diversified training. It also highlights the need for an innovative approach, combining the State-run system with market forces.

Short-term targets of Chinese soccer(2016-2020)

Social participation

Establishing a three-tier amateur competition system that includes grassroots club teams in 100 cities and involves more than 50 million participants

Fields

Building 70,000 soccer fields through refurbishment, transformation and new construction to provide half a field for every 10,000 participants on average

Training

Training 10,000 local coaches

Developing two or three Chinese professional clubs that dominate in Asia and are well-known globally, while expanding the appeal of China's top professional league worldwide

School system

Increasing the number of schools specializing in soccer education from more than 8,000 to 20,000, encouraging more than 30 million primary and secondary school students to practice soccer regularly and training 5,000 school soccer instructors