On June 6, the national football team will usher in a life-and-death battle in the World Preliminaries, the opponent is the Thai team, and only a win can ensure that they will advance to the round of 18 and retain the hope of entering the World Cup. On the evening of May 17, the Chinese Football Association officially announced that Song Kai, chairman of the Football Association, was invited to Bangkok to attend the AFC Congress and the FIFA Congress.
According to the official website of the Football Association, Song Kai met with UEFA President Severin on May 15, who said that he would work together with the Chinese Football Association to jointly promote the development of Chinese football.
After that, Song Kai met with AFC President Salman, Secretary-General Windsor, FIFA Secretary-General Matthias and Technical Director Stevens on May 16. Among them, Salman, as the leader of the AFC, has a very important attitude, he said that the development potential of Chinese football is huge, there is a broad market and mass base, and the AFC is willing to provide various forms of assistance and support to jointly promote the improvement of China's football level.
As we all know, before Song Kai took office, Du Zhaocai and Chen Xuyuan, representatives of the Chinese Football Association, failed diplomatically at the last AFC Congress, resulting in no representative from the Chinese Football Association in the middle and senior levels of the AFC, which can be said to be completely annihilated. Since then, Song Kai has begun to make up for his mistakes, and through various opportunities, to repair relations with the AFC and FIFA, but in the recent addition of the AFC Executive Committee, the Chinese Football Association still has not won a place, and to this day, none of the 30 executive committee members of the AFC are from the Chinese Football Association.
It is worth noting that the Chinese referee has been highly recognized by the AFC, in the last Asian Cup final, the Chinese referee team was adopted, Ma Ning, Fu Ming and other representatives of Chinese referees, law enforcement has been well received, and another Chinese referee Shen Yinhao has recently entered the ranks of referees focused on training by the AFC.
Thanks to the diplomatic efforts of the Football Association, the national brands of Chinese football at all levels are finally no longer the objects of arbitrary slaughter by referees in Asian competitions. For example, in the two world preliminary matches between the national football team and Singapore, China won penalties, and not only did not suffer a loss in terms of penalties, but also took some advantages. In the Olympic qualifiers, the National Olympic Games faced Japan and South Korea, and they did not suffer at all in the referee's judgment. This was hard to imagine in the past, and it also shows that the FA's public relations are quite effective.
In fact, as Salman said, the market potential of Chinese football is huge, which is recognized by the world, whether it is the top Asian competition or the international top competition, in fact, they do not want to let the Chinese team be absent, so that many media ridicule that the expansion of the World Cup to 48 teams is customized for the national football team, the purpose is to let the national football team enter the World Cup. From this point of view, looking at the key battle of the World Preliminary Tournament next month, whether it is the AFC or FIFA, it should be more hoped that China will advance to the round of 18, after all, from the perspective of the sponsors of the World Cup, the energy of Chinese capital is huge.
Of course, the Thai side is not idle, they will not sit still, this AFC Congress and FIFA Congress, held in Bangkok, Thailand hosts these two conferences, naturally also has its special purpose. There are still 20 days before the life-and-death battle between China and Thailand starts, and the secret war of football diplomacy between China and Thailand has long been filled with gunsmoke.