Tang Xigang, CEO of City Football Group China: What Chinese football lacks most is community football

Reporter Lu Mi reports The "Re-taking the Long March Road - China Football Development Seminar" jointly sponsored by "Football" and Xi'an Sports Bureau was held in Xi'an on December 17, with investors and executives from Chinese Super League, China League and China B clubs, as well as heads of sports administrative departments in key cities of national football development, and other industry insiders gathered together to offer suggestions for the development of Chinese football. At the seminar, Tang Xigang, CEO of City Football Group China and Chairman of Shenzhen Xinpengcheng, gave a keynote speech on "Some Thoughts on the Construction of China's Football Pyramid System", which especially talked about the argument of vigorously developing community football, which resonated.

Starting from the system, Tang Xigang put forward three core questions: (1) Is there a universal law for the development of football? What is it? (2) What is the football pyramid made of? (3) What is most missing in the current pyramid of Chinese football? The answer he gave was that the universal law for the development of football is to build a football pyramid system; The football pyramid is made up of clubs and leagues; The key point at the moment is that what is most lacking in Chinese football at the moment is grassroots community clubs.

In terms of building the football pyramid, Tang Xigang took England, Spain and Japan as examples to illustrate their football pyramid architecture. Among them, the total population of England is 57 million, with 2.1 million football population (playing more than 2 times a month), 800,000 registered players, more than 40,000 registered clubs, and more than 600 league groups at all levels. Its league structure is divided into 10 levels of professional, semi-professional and amateur, of which the eighth level of amateur leagues, a total of 8 regional leagues, 22 clubs in each district, a total of 176 clubs; The ninth level of the amateur league, with 16 divisional leagues and 20 clubs in each district, a total of 320 clubs; The 10th level of the amateur league, spread across counties and counties, with more than 40,000 clubs, is a club and league with community significance.

There are seven leagues in Japan, of which the amateur league accounts for three levels, two are regional leagues, and the most basic level is the leagues and clubs spread across the 47 local associations (prefectures).

Tang Xigang said that the pyramid system of developed football countries is relatively complete, especially the grassroots buildings are very large and compact, which is the key to supporting the pyramid spire.

In addition to sharing the system of a football powerhouse, Tang Xigang also cited the football resumes of Kevin De Bruyne, Mbappe and Takumi Minamino to emphasize the importance of community football.

"Kevin De Bruyne is one of our biggest stars at Manchester City, and without going into details, I want to draw attention to his starting point in football, which is the community club at the bottom of the pyramid. De Bruyne played for the Belgian club KVE De Longen between the ages of 4 and 8, which is an amateur club in the fifth division. Tang Xigang said.

Delongen is a small town under the jurisdiction of Ghent, Belgium's third largest city, with a population of only 13,000 people, but there are two echelons of U6 to U17 (including women's football), as well as an 11-a-side training ground with natural grass. De Bruyne's ability to reach the top of the pyramid step by step is inseparable from his football enlightenment.

Mbappe won the World Cup at the age of 19 and spent between the ages of 5 and 12 playing for France's Bondi Sports Club, a multi-sport community club in the north-eastern suburbs of Paris. The club mainly provides sports facilities, training and competitions for more than 20 sports such as football, basketball, handball, tennis, fencing, gymnastics, etc., with sufficient hardware and a complete competition system.

Tang Xigang said that the growth and success of these stars are not achieved in a day, they have laid a solid football foundation under a complete system. In the pyramid of Chinese football, the grassroots system is not perfect, and there are almost no football leagues that radiate to the community, so at the top of the pyramid, there are no players like De Bruyne and Mbappe. If Chinese football wants to develop better as a whole, the foundation at the bottom must be consolidated.

Tang Xigang said: "Deepening the layout and supporting the establishment and development of grassroots football clubs is the breakthrough point for building a future Chinese football pyramid system; The gradual establishment of regional football leagues divided by geographical regions is a new direction to strengthen the waist of the football pyramid; Further promoting local amateur leagues at the provincial and municipal levels is the cornerstone of consolidating the foundation for the development of football. ”