Why soccer does not work out in China - Rowan Simons

Rowan Simons

Chinese love soccer and the ongoing World Cup is just showing that, even though China is not even playing. Unfortunately, soccer expert Rowan Simons tells CNN, the country lacks to fundamentals to become a soccer nation in the future.

CNN:

"Success in football is directly related to the population of football players," says Rowan Simons, chairman of China Club Football, one of Beijing's biggest sports networks. The club allows thousands of amateurs -- both Chinese and expatriates -- to play the game every week.

Simons has been in China, and playing football there, for 20 years. He is arguably one of the most invested people in the grassroots development of the sport there.

He says that, statistically, one great footballer will emerge out of every 200,000 players. Right now, China has anywhere between 7,000 and 50,000 kids involved in football, according to the Chinese Football Association. This compares to nearly four million in the UK.

According to these calculations, "China is likely to have one quarter of a world-class player," says Simons.

Despite the enormous pool from which to select players, growing the footballing population is an huge task. The nation may be crazy about watching the game, but when it comes to playing it, there are hesitations.

More in CNN.

Rowan Simons is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

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Money does not help Chinese football - Rowan Simons

Rowan Simons

China is paying a high price for replacing sacked national football coach Jose Antonio Camach, but no money in the world can help Chinese football, even if they can get Marcello Lippi, tells soccer expert Rowan Simons to AFP.

AFP:

The Chinese Football Association (CFA) is currently locked in compensation talks with Camacho’s lawyers which could result in them paying him more than $9 million, reports say. But despite the huge outlay needed to entice Lippi as national coach, the government-funded CFA is expected to get their man. 

“The man that the CFA really wants is Marcello Lippi,” said Rowan Simons, an author and prominent commentator on Chinese football. 

But he told AFP: “The idea that a good coach can make bad players into a good team at the world level is fanciful at best, although it is the principle that the CFA has followed faithfully for over 50 years.” Tom Byer, the head technical advisor of the CFA-administered schools football programme, agreed China had too few world-class players and said there were deep-rooted causes behind the issue. 

Only about 200,000 schoolchildren play organised football at least three times per week, he said, and the priority in China’s intensive education system is for youngsters to achieve academic success at the expense of sports, particularly as most families are prohibited from having more than one child.

More in AFP.

Rowan Simons is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

China Weekly Hangout

The China Weekly Hangout discussed on 27 June the upcoming (or perhaps already ongoing) cyber wars. Are the cyber wars a new cold war in a new coat? Joined by media lecturer +Paul Fox from HKU, security consultant +Mathew Hoover from Hong Kong and China-Africa scholar +Winslow Robertson from Washington DC. Moderation by +Fons Tuinstra, of the China Speakers Bureau, from Lausanne, Switzerland.

 

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Why China is not at the World Cup - Rowan Simons

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China's soccer expert Rowan Simons explains in the New York Times why China is not present at the current World Cup in South Africa:

Let’s talk politics. The Chinese Football Association is an illegal organization under Article 17 of FIFA’s constitution which demands independence from government. Yet government control of the C.F.A. is clearly laid out in China’s 1994 Sports Law. These mutually exclusive regulations pose significant concerns.

Soccer needs a bottom-up approach from the grassroots in the urban neighborhoods, an approach that does not fit the country's bureaucratic culture:

Chinese sport still follows a Soviet model, placing children in elite schools (at their own expense!). Football is a mass participation sport in which the best players may not emerge until their later teens. The simple truth is that China needs a system of community-based clubs that are run by the people for the people.

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Rowan Simons is the chairman of China ClubFootball FC, the first amateur football network in China with foreign investors, and the author of “Bamboo Goalposts. He is also a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your meeting or conference, do get in touch.

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