July 2 – China’s Ministry of Education – which has been in charge of schools and university football development since 2014 – has updated the results of its national campus football project, revealing that there are now more than 20,200 specialist football academies across the country.
The three-year old project is divided into 12 experimental zones and 102 experimental counties and districts. To date central government has invested Yuan 680million ($102 million) and provincial governments have invested more than Yuan20 billion ($3 billion), according to the China Eduction Daily and Yutang Sports.
The investment is not stopping there. Wang Dengfeng, Head of the Ministry’s Department of Physical, Health and Arts Education, outlined plans to build another 30,000 specialist football academies from 2018-2025 at a press conference last week.
This activity has in turn led to an explosion of competitive age group football being with the number of students taking part in primary, middle school, high school, and university football. The ministry said there was a total of 10,040,800 participants in four levels of competitions in the past three years and 15,564 participants in the summer and winter campus football camps.
A lack of coaches and pitches has been identified a major problem with provinces and cities undertaking recruitment and coach education courses. 230,000 primary and middle school headmasters, sports teachers, sports researchers, administrators and grassroots coaches and referees have received training across the country.
The Ministry of Education employs more than 360 foreign coaches/teachers in China and has sent more than 1,100 campus football coaches to France and Britain to receive 3-month professional skills training.
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