The Pearl River Delta region, which is a key city for national football: attaches great importance to and continues to make efforts

Reporter Wang Wei reports If Chinese football wants to really improve, it is very important to grasp the "bull's nose" of high-quality development of key football cities. There are three key cities in the Pearl River Delta for national football development: Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Meizhou, and their common feature is that the local government attaches great importance to it, and has set up a leading group for the construction of key cities for national football development headed by the main leaders of the city, so as to coordinate the city's football work and concentrate on running the local football cause.

In January 2022, Shenzhen was included in the first batch of national key cities for football development. In May of that year, the Chinese Football Association and the Shenzhen Municipal Government signed the "Agreement on the Co-construction of High-level Youth Reserve Talent Base (Shenzhen) in Key Cities of National Football Development", and the two sides planned to cooperate in the formation of a six-level elite echelon of men's U10-U15 from 2022 to 2031 (5+5 years), and develop the construction of women's football elite echelon in a timely manner. According to the agreement, the Chinese Football Association arranges 3 million yuan (RMB, the same below) for project construction guidance every year, and Shenzhen City will invest an average of no less than 30 million yuan per year in 10 years according to the annual funding standard of 7 million yuan for each elite echelon, and 14 million yuan will be invested in 2023 to support the two elite echelon teams.

To build a key city for football development, the construction of stadium and venue infrastructure is very crucial. At present, there are more than 1,500 football fields in Shenzhen. Among them, the Shenzhen Youth Football Training Base covers an area of nearly 20 hectares. The Shenzhen Sports Center transformed the original stadium into a 45,000-seat professional football field. In addition, Shenzhen is planning to build a Bay Area Sports Park, in which an 80,000-seat professional football stadium is planned to be built, which can better serve the national team to train and compete in depth in the future.

In recent years, Shenzhen has set up a special fund for the development of the sports industry, focusing on supporting the development of high-level football events and clubs. At present, the subsidy standard for each season of the Chinese Super League is 35 million yuan, with a maximum reward of 80 million yuan (Asian champion) and 50 million yuan (Chinese Super League champion) for outstanding results, and a maximum of 15 million yuan for high-level commercial football events. Since 2020, Shenzhen has provided nearly 180 million yuan in subsidies and awards to football clubs, promoting the development of professional football clubs.

Shenzhen has also established a three-level league system of Shenzhen Super League, Shenzhen A and Shenzhen B that implements the relegation and relegation system, and has cultivated brand events such as Shenzhen Football Association Cup, Futsal Championship, "Shenzhen Cup" Amateur Football Match, "Iron Wolf Cup" Football Match, and "Shenzhen Street Super".

In terms of youth U series events, the Shenzhen Youth Football Championship, the Shenzhen Youth Football Elite League, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (Shenzhen) International Youth Football Invitational Tournament together constitute the Shenzhen Youth Football U Series competition system, where campus football characteristic schools, amateur sports schools at all levels, youth football clubs and social youth training institutions can form teams to register for the competition, realizing full coverage of all age groups (men's and women's U8-19 groups) and creating more competition opportunities for young athletes.

In addition, in terms of large-scale events, Shenzhen hosted the battle between China and South Korea in the round of 36 of the 2024 World Preliminaries; In February 2025, they will also host the AFC U20 Asian Cup.

It is understood that the Shenzhen Football Association has completed the construction of a six-level elite training camp for the men's football team and the women's football team for the men's football team and the women's football team for the single age group of the 12-year-old, and the six-level elite training camp of the youth training center under the age of 12, with more than 1,000 players in training. In 2024, Shenzhen will be successfully awarded the Women's Football Youth Training Center of the Chinese Football Association, becoming a city with full coverage of national men's and women's football youth training centers.

Guangzhou is also one of the first batch of key cities for national football development. The Guangzhou Municipal Sports Bureau and the Guangzhou Football Association have issued a series of policies such as the "Guangzhou Football Medium and Long-term Development Plan (2019-2050)" to promote the reform and development of football in the city. On August 12, 2024, the Guangzhou Municipal Government issued the "Implementation Opinions of Guangzhou Municipality on Accelerating the High-quality Development of Football in Guangzhou" in accordance with the national and provincial opinions on the high-quality development of football, becoming the first city in Guangdong Province to issue implementation opinions on high-quality development.

Youth training is the foundation of Chinese football, and Guangzhou puts the development of youth football in the most important position. In 2024, in order to consolidate the development of key football cities in the country, under the background of the comprehensive development of amateur football youth training institutions and professional echelons in Guangzhou, under the guidance of the Guangzhou Municipal Sports Bureau, the Guangzhou Football Association held the "Sui Youth Tournament" (Guangzhou Youth Football League).

The "Sui Youth Competition" is a youth football sports and education integration event that social clubs, training institutions and school teams can form teams to participate in, with a total of five categories: U10 mixed group, U12 men's group, U12 women's group, U15 men's group and U18 men's group. In terms of group setting, the U10 mixed gender group is the basic group; The U12, U15 and U18 men's divisions draw on the Japan Youth Soccer Championship and conduct a comprehensive review of the junior, junior, senior and corresponding echelons. In 2024, a total of 69 teams participated in the competition, with 438 competitions and about 1,800 participants.

At present, the "Sui Youth Championship" and the Guangzhou Youth Football Championship are the two major competitions of youth football in Guangzhou, and the Guangzhou Youth Football Championship is the participation of teams from various districts to test the development level of youth football in various districts of Guangzhou. In mid-August this year, the seven categories were completed, with a total of 189 matches played and nearly 1,400 young football players participating. Next, the two competitions will further improve the competition system, moving closer to the home-and-away format combined with the phased competition system.

In addition, in 2024, Guangzhou will be approved to carry out the pilot work of national youth football talent reform, which is another national youth football reform pilot work settled in Guangzhou after Guangzhou was selected as a national youth campus football reform pilot area in 2018. In June this year, Guangzhou issued the "Guangzhou National Youth Football Talent Training Reform Pilot Work Plan", in the context of the original "631" one-stop training channel, the construction of 2 high schools, 4 junior high schools, 6 primary schools, to achieve the compulsory education stage of the pilot school cross-district enrollment, open up the "642" primary, junior high school football talent "one-stop" training channel. At present, Guangzhou is exploring cooperation with colleges and universities, and is making every effort to open up a "one-stop" training channel for football talents from primary, junior high school to university.

In terms of the construction of the youth football team in Guangzhou, at present, the Guangzhou Football Association has set up a total of 14 teams of men's and women's football teams of all ages from 09 to 15. At present, Guangzhou has sent a large number of talents to China's national teams at all levels and national team training camps.

Meizhou is one of the second batch of key cities for football development in China, and in the past two years, the city has made great efforts to carry out football activities and solidly promote the reform and development of football.

Recently, with the approval of the Guangdong Provincial People's Congress, the country's first football regulation, the "Meizhou Youth Football Development Promotion Regulations", will come into force on January 1, 2025, and there are laws to follow to promote football development.

According to the requirements of the construction of key football cities, in terms of financial security, Meizhou City has more than 30 million yuan of supporting funds to invest in football reform and development every year. In the construction of football youth training in Meizhou City, the youth training of young talents is highlighted, and the "double youth" project is innovatively implemented. It is understood that Meizhou City has completed 10 to 14 and other age groups of elite training camps, selected a number of outstanding players to enter the national reserve talent pool, since the construction of the national football key city, Meizhou City has a total of 52 (121 person-times) outstanding young players selected into the national youth training base training camp, 11 players selected for the U series national team.

In the past two years, Meizhou football youth training has achieved remarkable results. Among them, the Meizhou U14 Youth Men's Football Team represented the Guangdong Football Association to participate in the 2023 Chinese Football Association Youth Championship (Member Association Group) and won the national championship; The U15 junior men's football team won the 2023 China Youth Championship (Professional Club U15 Group); In 2024, Meizhou won the championship in the "Qiaoxin Cup" National Youth Football Invitational Tournament (men's U9); In the key city competitions of football, the women's U13 team won the second place in the group, and the women's U14 team won the third place in the group; On December 16 this year, at the first "Western Youth Training Cup", the Meizhou team won the championship with a winning record.

In terms of the introduction of football talents, Meizhou City has implemented the "Golden Boot Project", introduced high-level youth training foreign coaches, and hired Japanese AFC A-level coach Kazutoku Inoue as the youth training director, and used it as the leader of youth training technology to promote the ability of the youth coaching team and the level of the youth training system. In terms of youth football competitions, Meizhou City has built an event system with the youth football league as the leader, and the youth football championship and elite selection tournament have multi-level and multi-level coordinated development.