Is football training a good business?

Intern journalist | Chen Zhenfang

At the end of the Asian Cup, how did the domestic football training perform?

According to the latest data from Tianyancha, there are currently more than 5,300 football training-related enterprises in the country, and nearly 60% of related enterprises have been established within five years. The number of registrations exceeded 1100 in 2019, reaching a peak. In the following two years, the number of related enterprise registrations declined, and only more than 200 new ones were added in 2021.

Guangdong football training related enterprises lead the country, with nearly 1700, accounting for about 32%. Beijing and Zhejiang have more than 800 related enterprises, ranking second and third respectively.

According to the "Guangdong Football Industry Research Report" released by the Guangdong Football Sports Center and the Guangdong Football Association in 2020, the total scale of the football industry in Guangdong Province in 2018 and 2019 was 20.871 billion yuan and 18.881 billion yuan respectively, and it is predicted that it will exceed 40 billion yuan in 2022.

There are generally three modes of football training in Guangdong: training schools/institutions, social football training, and youth professional football training (hereinafter referred to as youth training), and youth training is the main talent transportation channel for the team. The above report pointed out that Guangdong's football brokerage market is currently highly dependent on foreign aid business, and the youth player business is a potential growth point in the market.

The state has issued a series of policies to promote the development of the football industry.

In 2015, the State Council deliberated and adopted the "Overall Plan for the Adjustment and Reform of the Chinese Football Association", which clearly requires the improvement of the training and development mode of football professionals, the promotion of the reform and development of the national football team, the strengthening of the construction and management of football venues, and the improvement of the input mechanism.

In 2020, the "Guiding Opinions on the Construction of Key Cities for National Football Development" clearly states that 16-18 key cities for football development will be built in the country. By 2035, football will become a landmark cause for China to build a sports powerhouse; strengthen the training of football professionals.

Under the policy east wind, is football training a good business?

In 2016, Soford Sports received two rounds of financing from Chinese Culture and Sequoia Capital within 4 months. Fan Chengen, CEO of Soford Sports, publicly stated at that time that Soford Sports would take the European youth training system as a template to correct the common shortcomings of the current Chinese football youth training, and make blood for the future professional football system through its own football youth training system.

In the same year, a number of companies in the football training track gained the favor of capital. These include Guild Wars League, Dong Yu Yu, Qing Wu Sheng Di, Heng Sheng Sports, Guo Hui Football, New Dream Sports, etc.

But the heat of capital then fell silent. According to the data of "Lazy Bear Sports", in 2021, there were 87 public sports financings in China, totaling about 11.2558 billion yuan. Only Sorare, a blockchain soccer game operator, has received investment and financing.

For enterprises, the football training track is a track with high capital requirements, long investment cycle and slow returns, and venue construction and professional coaches have put forward higher requirements for training institutions.

In the construction of the venue, the initial investment in the construction of the football training field is large, the cycle is long, and the return is slow. According to the views of industry insiders quoted by "Lazy Bear Sports", there are few professional football venues in China, and there are only a few that are open for youth training institutions to use, and the asking price is high, and the cost of the venue is high. At the same time, compared with basketball, fencing and other sports, football training has a natural disadvantage in the use of ping effect.

In terms of professional football coaches, the football coaching qualification certificate is divided into professional level, A level, B level, C level and D level. According to the official website of the Chinese Football Association, as of 2018, there were 41,255 domestic D-level coaches (training children aged 6-8), 11,855 C-level (training 9-12-year-old teenagers), 2,298 B-level (training 13-16-year-old youth amateur teams), A-level (training top amateur youth teams aged 17-21) and 158 professional coaches, respectively.

Participation of football coaches in training. Source: The official website of the Chinese Football Association

Overall, since 2009-2018, the number of coaching applications has increased year by year, compared with the number of coaches who focused on the adolescent stage in childhood.

Football is also relatively understaffed. According to Xinhua News Agency reported on February 8, Wang Jiaming, the husband of Chinese women's football coach Shui Qingxia, has long been engaged in women's football youth training. He said that campus football has received more and more attention in recent years, and the number of girls willing to play football in the primary school stage has increased year by year, but the phenomenon of a sharp decrease in the number of people after junior high school still exists, compared with Germany, Japan and other countries, China's "women's football population" is several times or even dozens of times smaller.

Wang Jiaming believes that the key to solving the problem is to rely on the deep integration of sports and education to ensure that talent training is continuous.

Finally, the football field is generally outdoor, which is greatly affected by the weather, and in the event of rain or snow, the original training plan will also cause changes, and the institution needs to have a certain degree of anti-risk ability.