Source: China News Network
"Youth football work should change from quick success to long-term success, and resolutely put an end to match-fixing, tacit understanding caused by excessive pursuit of competition results, and the appearance of 'cutting off children and grandchildren' on the field. ”
At the 2024 National Youth Football Winter Training Mobilization Meeting held on the 26th, Song Kai, chairman of the Chinese Football Association, said.
In the last week of 2023, this national youth winter training mobilization meeting, which will be held again after many years, aims to allow the Chinese football community to gather a consensus on "youth training first" and deploy and promote the national youth training work in 2024.
Meeting site. Image source: Chinese Football Association
Again, the importance of youth training is emphasized
It is understood that more than 120 people attended the meeting, including Wang Lei, deputy director of the Youth Department of the General Administration of Sports and first-class inspector, Sun Wen, vice chairman of the Chinese Football Association, Yuan Yongqing, vice chairman and secretary general of the Chinese Football Association, and relevant persons in charge of local sports administrative departments, football associations, and Chinese Super League clubs.
It is worth mentioning that this is also the second time that the Chinese Football Association has held a national youth football winter training mobilization meeting after many years.
Song Kai, chairman of the Chinese Football Association, said that compared with the world's football powers, the mainland has shown a systematic backwardness in terms of registered football population size, talent training and selection, professional league management, national team construction, and football culture development, and has become a prominent shortcoming in the construction of a sports power.
He believes that the resumption of the organization of the national youth winter training work is an important measure of the Chinese Football Association to improve the level of youth competition, and it will also become a normalized work in the future.
Song Kai, chairman of the Football Association. Image source: Chinese Football Association
"Chinese football is not practicing enough"
At the same time as the meeting was going on, the Chinese Olympic team, which was preparing for the Olympic preliminaries, played a warm-up match with the Malaysian Olympic team, and the national Olympic team finally "revenged" the Malaysian team 2:1. Prior to this, the national Olympic team was defeated by the opponent 0:1 in the first leg of the warm-up match, which caused heated discussions among fans.
In fact, this is a microcosm of the decline of national teams at all levels. Although there are occasional surprises, the overall performance in international competitions is still mostly limited by strength.
The Chinese men's football team has not been able to enter the World Cup since the 2002 South Korea-Japan World Cup. The national junior team and the national youth team have not been on the stage of the World Junior Championships and the World Youth Championships in the past 20 years. Even in 2019, the Chinese national youth encountered the dilemma of missing the Asian Youth Championships for the first time in 25 years.
Data map: South Korea and Japan World Cup national football team against Brazil. Photo by reporter Mao Jianjun
Song Kai said that it has been more than 30 years since the professionalization of Chinese football, but it is still difficult to move in the international football arena.
"Youth football has developed to a certain extent, but the quality of training is not high, the youth training system is not perfect, the management system is unreasonable, and the cultural and ideological education of young players needs to be strengthened urgently, which objectively restricts the improvement of the national team. ”
He also specifically mentioned the Chinese women's football team, which has lost consecutive defeats in the Olympic preliminaries, the Women's World Cup, and the Hangzhou Asian Games this year. "At the end of the day, it's still not in place. ”
Meeting site. Image source: Chinese Football Association
"Putting an end to utilitarianism leading to match-fixing"
In addition, utilitarianism is also a major problem that plagues China's youth football work.
Song Kai said that the work of youth football should change from quick success to long-term success, shift the work idea from emphasizing competition organization to attaching importance to the quality of youth training, and shift the work idea from emphasizing competition results to coaches and player training.
"Deeply adjust and reform the evaluation methods in the field of youth football, and resolutely break the bad image of emphasizing championships, ignoring training, emphasizing results, neglecting training, emphasizing the present and ignoring the long-term in the field of youth football. ”
"Resolutely put an end to match-fixing, tacit understanding caused by excessive pursuit of match results, and 'cutting off children and grandchildren' on the court. Strengthen education on creditworthiness for coaches, guide the establishment of values of being good people, reading good books, and playing good football, and create a happy, sunny, and positive stadium environment for youth football. Song Kai said. (Chinanews reporter Bian Liqun)