On January 13, the four-year Shanghai Football Association completed the "from the ninth to the tenth" election. Liu Haiguang, who took office 4 years ago, was successfully re-elected as the president of the Football Association, before the meeting began, the morning newspaper reporter conducted an exclusive interview with Liu Haiguang, the core topic is of course, in the past four years, what the Municipal Football Association has done, and what things have been done, which makes him, the president of the Football Association, feel impressed and of far-reaching significance. Surprisingly, Liu Haiguang did not overly evaluate the achievements of professional football clubs, but the youth football system of the football talent pyramid, he said a bunch.
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From the perspective of fans, the performance of a city's professional football team in the top league may be an important basis for evaluating the effectiveness of the city's football association. Taking Shanghai as an example, the results of the two teams in Shanghai Harbor and Shanghai Shenhua in the Chinese Super League and the FA Cup are of course the most obvious standards. But in fact, from the perspective of the management and operation of a city's Football Association, this may only be "one of the standards". Liu Haiguang said that Shanghai currently has 2 Chinese Super Leagues (Shanghai Harbor and Shanghai Shenhua), 1 Women's Super League (Shanghai Shengli), 2 Female A (Shanghai Shenhua Upper Body, Shanghai Qiusheng), 1 Middle B (Shanghai Jiading Huilong) and 1 Wuchao (Shanghai Xufang). Over the past four years, these clubs have done very well in professional competitions, adding to the glory of the city of Shanghai. From the perspective of the Municipal Football Association, in fact, it is more from the perspective of service guarantee to assist them in completing various transactional work.
What really makes the Municipal Football Association invest great energy and enthusiasm to operate is precisely the two tasks of youth football, which is not easy for fans to see results, and the establishment and improvement of the social football system. Liu Haiguang, a football star, talked about the topic of youth football, he said bluntly: "I think it is particularly important to use competition to practice instead of competition and to promote training with competition. He recounted several time points: the elite base league was founded in 2018, the Yangtze River Delta Super Football Tournament was founded in 2019, the Youth Club League was founded in 2020, and the 2018-2021 China City Children's League (Shanghai Division) competition was hosted.
This "Youth Club League" has a great sense of topic, its full name is "Shanghai Youth Football Club League", which is an independent property rights event created by the Shanghai Football Association, which realizes the country's first football event operation right to be established through the property rights trading market, and provides a demonstration template for promoting football reform and sports industry development.
The reporter then checked the relevant statistics provided by the Football Association, the Youth Club League was founded two years ago, a total of more than 3,000 games, covering age groups from 7 to 17 years old, a total of 21 groups, more than 230 teams, about 3,000 athletes to participate. Taking the past 2021 as an example, since the start of the tournament in April 2021, the entire second Youth Club League has lasted for 8 months, with 10 men's groups and 5 women's groups in the elite group and 5 women's groups, with a total of 169 teams and 2766 athletes participating; the popularization group has 6 groups, a total of 82 teams, and 1066 athletes. The total number of teams was 251, an increase of 105% compared with the first edition, with a total number of 3832 people, an increase of 91%,00%, and a total of 1,569 matches, an increase of 150%. Among the participating institutions, there are 16 elites and training bases, 39 social training institutions, and social training institutions account for 70%, an increase of 100% compared with last year's social institutions.
Liu Haiguang said that the Municipal Football Association creatively proposed the "elite-training-popularization" triple jump model, using a promotion and relegation system, so that the originally uncompetitive youth football competition system has competitiveness and has an upward channel.
Another job that has no huge market movement, but "the predecessors plant trees, the posterity cools down" is how to create a social football system that meets the actual needs of shanghai - equivalent to laying "capillaries", only when the blood vessel roots are developed, the "muscles" (the top professional football clubs) will be tough.
Fans who do not play football or fans who are not active in Shanghai amateur football venues probably do not know that the 11-a-side Shanghai Football Association Super League and The First Division, since its establishment in 2018, after several years of operation and improvement, have formed a connection with the four leagues of the Chinese Football Association (Chinese Super League, Chinese First Division, Chinese Second Division, and Chinese Champions) and become the fifth and sixth level competitions in the country. In other words, it is the "last millimeter" of opening up the "capillaries" of the development of a city football. In addition, the 8-a-side city champions league launched in 2018 has also formed a run through the city and district levels, which can be understood as follows: grassroots football and top stages, the channel has actually been paved.
Toward the end of the interview, the head of the Municipal Football Association also talked about a topic of appetizing appetite, that is, the Municipal Football Association is currently exploring and solving the soul torture question that many parents of young players encounter when their children play football until their children are about 15 years old- "which way to choose between reading and playing football". Liu Haiguang said that our plan is to let children who like to play football and are not willing to give up their studies have a smooth way to continue learning and get their academic qualifications, secondary school - college, or even undergraduate - employment, which solves the problem of reading and playing football.
When the time is ripe, be sure to ask Liu Haiguang to talk deeply about this topic.