Why did we publish the White Paper of the 2024 China Football Development Seminar?

On the evening of the 16th, Xi'an. The faces of the club presidents, local sports bureaus and heads of the Football Association who came to participate in the "Re-taking the Long March Road - 2024 China Football Development Seminar" were full of brilliance, because in the evening, the executive meeting of the State Council studied the relevant work to promote the revitalization and development of football, and the high-level meeting was considered a strong signal for the revitalization of Chinese football; The relevant documents issued by the ensuing will surely be the country's strong support in the face of Chinese football in the policy.

As the organizers, we define this conference as the theme class meeting of Chinese football, and strive to be frugal. However, when the senior management of the Chinese Football Association, the managers of 16 key football cities, the investors and general managers of the Chinese Super League, the Chinese Super League and the Chinese League B clubs gathered in Xi'an, accompanied by the press release of the State Council holding an executive meeting to study and promote the revitalization and development of football, "re-taking the Long March Road" is really timely and of great significance - this is a communication and collision of football development concepts under the new development opportunities of Chinese football, and it is also an exchange and integration of the sports system and professional league system based on the key cities of national football development.

As the most important part of the seminar, Song Kai, President of the Chinese Football Association, delivered a speech on "Some Thoughts on the Development of Chinese Football". He said: "This time, I do not represent the Chinese Football Association. On my own behalf, I would like to share some thoughts with you. Some make sense, some don't. Let's discuss and think together! It was also under this premise that his entire speech lasted a full hour.

Communicating with everyone as a senior football worker rather than as the chairman of the Chinese Football Association is to shorten the distance and achieve the best communication effect. In the exchange the day before, Song Kai made it clear that he hoped that this meeting could unify his thinking. He also mentioned this many times in his speech, and he said at the beginning: "Our first step is to unify our thinking, and the whole country must unify our thinking - we must grasp football, and we must do football well." This must be unified, and then no matter how we grasp it, we must also unify our thinking. ”

In his speech, regarding the leadership of the party, Song Kai made it clear: "Strengthen the leadership of the party, centralize and unify leadership, and solve the problem of ideological unity." Unity of thought and action is the premise of being able to do football well. Regarding the unified thinking, the General Administration of Sports of the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Football Association have previously carried out full practice at the national team management level: the "construction of the big national team" based on the coordination of the "General Administration-Football Association-Club" is a unified idea at the guarantee level, and based on the ideological work of the party branch activities, team committees and player symposiums, it is a unified idea at the player level.

The unity of thought is inevitably produced in the process of listening and colliding. After the agenda on the morning of the 17th, Zhang Yue, general manager of Shanghai Jiading Huilong Football Club, said: "After listening to the introduction of the construction of key cities, I felt a lot and felt that the development of Chinese football is very promising. ”

At this meeting, the professional league level is dominated by the investors, chairmen or general managers of Chinese Super League clubs, and some investors and general managers of Chinese Super League clubs are specially invited to participate. Although they are both sports practitioners, they have always kept their distance from each other. At least in previous years, the sports system did not intervene in the work of professional leagues and professional clubs, and professional clubs did not have the heart to focus on the construction of key cities and other work of local sports bureaus and football associations.

As the organizer of the conference, this newspaper also discussed whether to set up two venues for this reason when designing the agenda, but finally decided to merge the two into one, and the effect of this approach was beyond expectations: professional clubs are very interested in the content of key city construction, and are also thinking about where they can participate more; Local sports bureaus, football management centers and football associations have actually become a link between the government and professional clubs, and some regional sports bureaus and football associations have even participated in the direct operation of professional clubs in the form of trusteeship, and naturally hope to deeply integrate with professional clubs.

Kowloon's control of the water and its own battle is one of the chaos in the development of Chinese football before, which includes the development of youth football, the improvement of the league system, and naturally the lack of integration between sports and education. But during this conference, more practitioners showed their height and feelings.

Gu Jiqing, vice president of Shanghai Jiushi Group and chairman of Shanghai Shenhua, delivered a speech entitled "Summary of the Thoughts of 31-year-old sophomores", which interpreted the positioning of professional leagues and professional clubs from the aspects of football industry, high-quality urban development, urban high-quality life and urban high-efficiency governance, which is another correction of the professional league's simple addiction to competitive thinking in the past 31 years.

Tang Xigang, CEO of City Football Group China and Chairman of Shenzhen Xinpengcheng, gave a speech on "Some Thoughts on the Construction of China's Football Pyramid System", focusing on the construction of the pyramid system of China's leagues, including professional leagues, and his greater focus was on the development of community football. Coincidentally, Xu Ming, chairman of the Xinjiang Football Association, also emphasized the development of community football clubs. Li Ying, the head of ByteDance's public welfare project, focuses on county football and township football, hoping to "give children the opportunity to show their stage and be discovered, and solve the problem of a way out for children with dreams." ”

The development of youth football, including the construction of elite echelons, is the theme of the seminar on the evening of the 17th, Zhou Peijian, general manager of Shandong Taishan Football Club, said that the club will always adhere to elite training, Dalian InBev investor Wang Kui said that he wants to cultivate good seedlings in Dalian, Zhang Yue, general manager of Shanghai Jiading Huilong, disclosed that "the club's first team and echelon investment is five or five", which shocked almost all the participants.

Of course, the China Football Development Seminar is not a meeting that simply talks about achievements and shows determination, but also prompts corresponding difficulties and development ideas in many aspects such as professional leagues, key city construction, youth football development, social football, and association construction.

Combined with this meeting, which can be called the highest-level conference of Chinese football of the year, "Football" newspaper finally released this issue of the "2024 China Football Development Seminar White Paper", which has made a comprehensive interpretation of the development concept of the Football Association, the promotion of key cities in the national football development, the construction of professional leagues and the popularization of social football, and the relevant content of youth football is deeply integrated. Of course, a conference cannot provide the ultimate solution for Chinese football, but it collides with thinking, unifies ideas, breaks barriers, and stimulates feelings, which is the most tangible feeling that this conference brings us.

We decided to record this meeting in the form of a white paper because this is the first time that veteran football player Song Kai has comprehensively and systematically expounded his football philosophy, and it is also the first time that key football cities and professional leagues have sought deep integration.

More importantly, we believe that this will be a memorable time scale and a new starting point for Chinese football, only this time, the "Football" newspaper is no longer just an observer, a recorder, but also a participant, when "Football" will gather everyone to Xi'an, meetings, exchanges, discussions, when we and all the guests stand under the 18-meter-long "Re-take the Long March Road" huge poster to take a group photo, this moment of the "Football" newspaper is not just a newspaper, a media, but a part of Chinese football.

The successful convening of the "2024 China Football Development Seminar" is a major event of "Football" and a major event of Chinese football. We use the "White Paper" to commemorate and open, after that, what Chinese football has to do is to continue to practice the development concept of basically reaching consensus. As Jack Welch, a well-known entrepreneur and former CEO of General Motors, said, "Once you have a simple but firm idea, just keep repeating it and it will eventually become a reality." Refine, persevere, repeat – that's the recipe for success. ”

Chinese football must be accompanied by "Football" on its journey again!