CRI听力:China School Football Program

In 2009, Chinese authorities recognized the need to foster grassroots development in order to improve the standard of football within the country. The China School Football Program, a joint cooperation between the Sports Ministry and the Education Ministry, with the Chinese Football Association on board as technical consultant, aims to provide children across the country with the chance to get involved in football from a young age.

In August of this year, Tom Byer, a renowned youth development coach, famous in Japan for training a generation of children via workshops, comic books and television programs, was enlisted to provide support to the CSF and develop grassroots football across China. Byer, a former professional player himself, has devoted his post-professional career to developing grassroots football in Asia. The success of Japanese football in recent years has been directly attributed to Byers' efforts in encouraging development from the bottom up.

Soundbite Tom Byer: "I got heavy into youth development in Japan, and I introduced a technical coaching program that was modeled after the Ducthman Wiel Coerver, who basically created a program for young players with the idea of trying to make their technical ability to much better."

The CSF represents an attempt to start delivering programs and football through schools as opposed to pursuing a top-down approach and only investing at the very upper echelons of the game. Tom Byer talked about the importance of utilizing such an approach.

Soundbite Tom Byer 2: "It's really about putting your resources into the young kids and focusing on them, but in China and a lot of other places, they're throwing money at the top but the bottom line is it doesn't work. It has to be done organically, it has to be done from the bottom, and grown from the bottom up so there's a healthy platform, and you get millions of kids playing the game."

Tom Byers' partner Marcus Kam, previously the director of sports marketing for Adidas, elaborated upon the goals of the CSF.

Marcus Kam "the whole platform is not about producing the next best player, it would be nice to have that as a bi-product, but the football playing population in China has shrunk immensely, especially at youth level. One of the key things is to re-popularize football, try to get football into the school agenda or PE agenda, and just getting more kids to play.

At the moment, Byers is determined to get the CSF coaches up to speed on basic fundamental technical training, so that the children who participate in the program can acquire the basic level of skills needed to enjoy football and want to continue to play in the future. But Marcus Kam pointed out that the CSF also faces an obstacle in the form of the traditional views of parents.

"We also have to encounter the fact that many parents still see sports as a distraction, so on top of just teaching kids basic football skills, we're also communicating with the parents, and teaching the principals of schools that sport is part of education. You have to have kids that are healthy to have kids that are smart."
Interestingly enough, Tom Byer also noted that the improvement of grassroots football in China will not only benefit the country, but also the entire footballing region.

"A country like Japan needs a healthy China. The problem is, now Japan has become so strong, that to really get to that next level, just like when I talk about players, if you want to get the best players better you've got to improve the lower levels; same thing on a country level. For Japan to get to the next level, they need a strong Korea, which they have, they need Australia, they need China. What happens is, when Japan plays in qualifiers, whether its Olympics or AFC, they kind of cruise through them.

There are 300 million children under the age of 14 in China. This remarkable figure presents a challenge for authorities when attempting to carry out coordinated programs which aim to promote sports. At present, the CSF program runs across 90 cities and targets children from the age of 8 through to early teens. There are plans to extend the program to high school and university students in the coming years. However, Tom Byer pointed out the need to manage expectations with grassroots football, emphasizing the fact that this is a long term program, the results of which will not be immediate.

"There are no quick successes in grassroots football. It's like a ten, twenty year program. Japan has only just started to see the benefits of that."

Nonetheless, it is clear that the authorities are starting to take grassroots development seriously, and over the coming years, the popularity of football among younger children should hopefully increase.

For CRI, I'm Stuart Wiggin.