Readers and friends who have watched the reflection on the defeat of the last national football team may have noticed that in our view, the Chinese Football Association has not played a positive role in the continuous decline of Chinese football. It can even be said that the responsibility that the Chinese Football Association should bear is far greater than that of players and coaches.
What should a good national football association do? In fact, it is very simple, on the one hand, actively support the cultivation of amateur and youth football at the grass-roots level, on the other hand, correctly guide the professional football at the top level. Looking at the mature national associations in Europe and the United States, the most important and daily work is at the grassroots level, training grassroots coaches and referees, providing training guidance and playing opportunities for amateur and youth teams; and at the tip of the professional league pyramid, the figure of the Football Association has been quite diluted, and the protagonist is the professional league.
Because of its unique development method, the Chinese Football Association is contrary to the way. To sum up: while acting chaotically, there is inaction.
The so-called chaotic behavior is to point fingers in professional leagues, riot operations continuously, only care about their own performance indicators, but often do not consider whether the participants can stand it. How many years the professional league has been held, and the various jokes of the Chinese Football Association have made one after another. "Relegation can only be relegated if you lose the relegation battle", which is not to say, and in recent years, there have been various mixes in the player's contract. Even if it is to regulate the market, you always have to give others a little time to adjust, right? Can player contracts be modified at will by unrelated third parties? Since it is regulating the market, why is it not standardized for clubs to default on players' salaries? Why does the club "cheat" in meeting the Chinese Super League access standards not see the strict requirements?
Another typical case of chaotic behavior is last year's "neutral name storm". Is it okay for clubs to use neutral names? Good. But now it's okay to change the neutral name? No way! The change of Japanese J-League teams from sponsoring company names to neutral team names was in the 1990s, when the Japanese economy was still thriving, and such changes were consumed by enterprises; the neutral name reform was somewhat untimely to choose in 2021, not to mention the economic situation of enterprises, a closed tournament league caused by the epidemic alone was enough to make the normally operating clubs tighten their roots. Choosing this time to carry out neutral name reform, do not you have to choose to drink slimming tea when you have a heavy cold - lest the patient is not sick enough?
At the same time as the chaos in the top league, it is inaction and "stealth" in other aspects that should have been picked by the protagonist of the Chinese Football Association. Amateur footballers should have this experience: want to play football? Contact yourself to form a team to operate on your own. What is the FA? I don't know!
It is no exaggeration to say that 99% of China's amateur football enthusiasts have no intersection with the football association on weekdays - in the data of the football associations in Europe, the United States and even Japan and South Korea, these people are counted as the football population, and the statistics of the Chinese Football Association do not count these people at all. Since even statistics are not counted, it is natural that there are no standardized amateur events and professional technical support. It is normal for amateur teams to be studied by amateurs themselves to study tactics and training, and occasionally a few professionally trained people can take it to the high standard. All of this has nothing to do with the Chinese Football Association.
Amateur football does not act, women's football and youth training do the same. We have already talked about the issue of youth football in the last issue, and the same is true of women's football. The top teams of the Chinese women's football team can only play a dozen league games at most throughout the year, and count all kinds of cup tournaments as twenty. There is also a huge gap in the level of competition in nearly half of the games, and there is not much exercise value at all. The Sichuan women's football team, which was at the bottom of the league last year, only scored 3 goals in 9 games in the first regular season, and lost 20 of them.
That is to say, the national team can have more opportunities - in fact, there are not many games, and the training time is often several months, and the interests of the club are not taken seriously.
In 2015, the "Overall Plan for the Reform and Development of Chinese Football" was introduced. Officials of the Chinese Football Association have said that the hope of Chinese football is in youth, in amateur football. But 7 years later, hope is still only in words...
Text/Hubei Daily reporter Guo Xiaoming
Photo: Xinhua News Agency