Preliminary summary of the 3rd China Youth Competition: Focus on the quality of the event and focus on the "ground preliminaries"

Reporter Chen Yong reports On August 22, Shandong Taishan U15 team won the men's U15 championship of the 3rd China Youth League (hereinafter referred to as the China Youth Championship) in 2024. A day later, Yale-China Changsha School Chinese won the men's U13 category. Although there are still many categories of events going on in the third China Youth Championships, the overall situation of this year's China Youth Championships has also become clearer after the curtain has come down on the two most critical categories.

On the basis of maintaining the stability of the competition, the third China Youth Championship has carried out some positive explorations to improve the quality of the competition, including the regional league of the home-and-away system (the opening of the Beijing-Lu-Hebei-Henan U17 League). At the same time, the schedule of the finals of the China Youth Championship has also been optimized. Of course, financial and other pressures still plague the Youth Championships.

In next year's 4th China Youth Championship, the main direction of the event is to do the local qualifiers, improve the quality of the events in the provinces and cities, and gradually realize the development of the provincial and municipal qualifiers to the normalized league integrating sports and education. At the same time, it is committed to further optimizing the competition system and organization of the regional stage between the local provincial and municipal qualifiers and the national finals, and piloting the home-and-away competition system in regions with conditions in each stage of the competition.

At the beginning of 2024, on issues related to the development of youth football in China, holding high-quality tournaments has become the main direction of this year. Therefore, this year's 3rd China Youth Championship has made two major changes to the competition format around the development of high-quality competitions.

The first is to pilot a home-and-away format. In last year's China Youth Championship, the men's U15 finals and U13 finals adopted a home-and-away two-legged system. This year, the home-and-away format was piloted in the men's U17 group, which was the Beijing-Lu-Hebei-Henan U17 League in the first half of the year.

The Men's U17 format features 24 seeded teams, the top 24 of last year's group, while the rest of the teams are open for national registration. The regional qualifiers are divided into six regional competitions, including South, Central and North, and a total of 57 teams will advance to the first stage of the finals.

At the same time as the regional competition was underway, six teams from the top 24 teams in Beijing, Lu and Hebei played the Beijing-Lu-Ji-Yu U17 Regional League. The participating teams are three professional club echelons from Shandong Taishan, Beijing Guoan and Henan, as well as three campus teams from Shijiazhuang No. 2 Middle School, No. 3 High School Affiliated to Renmin University and Zhengzhou No. 9 Middle School. Six teams played a double round-robin home and away for a total of 10 rounds. The home-and-away format will also be the main direction of the Youth Championship in the future.

At the finals level, optimizing the schedule is one of the main tasks. In this year's China Youth Championships, with the joint efforts of the China Youth Championships Competition Office and the local competition office, the number of teams participating in the U13 and U15 groups reached 72, and the full quota of these two groups was achieved for the first time. At the same time, on the basis of summarizing the beneficial experience of the previous two competitions, the organizing committee optimized the competition schedule of this tournament, and the men's U13 and U15 group stage and knockout rounds are all "play one rest and one rest" system, so that the players have more rest time, providing more sufficient preparation time and richer preparation time for technical and tactical content for high-quality participation.

In addition, the men's U15 and U13 groups of this year's China Youth Championship have achieved a full live broadcast of the event, and it is a live broadcast with a two-camera camera, and the number of views on the Internet involving the China Youth Football League is as high as 230 million. In addition, one of the best players is selected for each match and is presented with awards and moments after the game, which adds to the sense of ceremony and builds the confidence of the young players. During the competition, in order to further strengthen the talent pool of national young players at all levels, the Chinese Football Association selected an expert group in each group of the Chinese Youth Championship to select outstanding talents through high-level competitions.

In terms of basic data, there are a total of 1,307 finals in this year's China Youth Championship, with 517 matches completed in the men's U13 and U15 groups, 330 matches in the men's U17 group, and 117 matches in the women's U14, U16 and U18 groups, 163 and 180 games respectively. Men's U19 is a league format and is not counted.

In this year's China Youth Championship, the top 12 teams in the men's U13 group and the U15 group are completely different in nature: the U13 group is dominated by campus football and social youth training institutions, and the professional club echelon occupies an absolute numerical advantage in the U15 group.

The top 12 teams in the U13 group are Changsha Yali Foreign Chinese, Shandong Taishan, Wuhan Three Towns, Guangzhou Mingtu, Nanchang Hongcheng, Zhengzhou Hansen, Shenzhen 2028 Yucai Experiment, Hefei Mantianxing, Shenzhen Baoti Xin'an Middle School, Guangzhou Yangcheng, Changsha No. 1 Middle School Xinhuadu and Shijiazhuang 48 Middle School (in no particular order, the same below).

Among them, there are two professional club echelons, five teams from other youth training institutions, four campus football teams, one sports school football team, and the final champion is the campus football team Changsha Yali Foreign Chinese. There were only three professional club teams in the top 12 of the men's U13 group in last year's China Youth Championship.

In contrast, the top 12 teams in the U15 group are Shandong Taishan, Tsinghua High School, Shanghai Lucky Star Kangcheng, Evergrande Football School U15, Changchun Yatai, Shanghai Shenhua, Zhejiang, Evergrande Football School U14, Hubei Youth Star Jingzhou Sports School, Beijing Guoan, Shenzhen Experimental School and Dalian U15.

Among them, there are eight professional club echelons, two sports and education co-construction teams and two campus football teams. In the end, it was Shandong Taishan who won the championship. In the top 12 of the men's U15 group of last year's China Youth Championship, professional clubs occupied 11 places, and the other team came from the campus.

On the whole, social youth training institutions and campus football teams continue to show the characteristics of two-way running, and social youth training institutions have made great progress relying on the development of campus football. At the same time, the development of social youth training institutions has also fed back campus football. The excellent results achieved in the China Youth Championship are the best incentive for them, and then promote the continuous development of campus football and social youth training institutions. At the U15 age group, more excellent players are starting to develop professionally, and it is reasonable for the professional echelon to have an advantage.

Although the men's U17, U19 and women's competitions are still underway, preparations for the 4th China Youth Championships in 2025 are already underway.

The men's U13 and U15 groups, which are key competitions, have always been lacking in the scale and quality of the local qualifiers. In the first half of this year, the China Youth Competition Office also actively coordinated with local competition areas, hoping to strengthen the scale and quality of local qualifiers, and formulated the "2024 Third China Youth Competition Men's Junior High School Age Group (U13, U15 Group) National Finals Quota Allocation Method". The allocation of places is based on the number of teams participating in the local qualifiers (60%), the level of the competition (10%), the competition system (10%), the results of the previous finals (15%) and publicity reports (5%).

Taking the number of participating teams as an example, three or less teams are not scored, 16 teams are worth 90 points, and 16 or more teams are worth 100 points. In terms of competition system, the home and away competition system is worth 100 points, the phased competition system is 80 points, and the single-stage competition system is 60 points. The above strategy is to further promote the development of the local qualifiers, and only when the local qualifiers are fully developed and gradually strengthened, can the value and significance of the junior tournament be fully reflected. In addition, ensuring the quality of local qualifiers as much as possible, encouraging the increase in the number of participating teams and encouraging the home-and-away format are also priorities.

At present, the Office of the China Youth Championship actively coordinates the city member units of the Chinese Football Association to implement the home-and-away system in the 4th China Youth Championship Qualifiers, and actively coordinates the provincial-level member units to implement the home-and-away system combined with the phased competition system, and at the same time comprehensively expands the number of participating teams in the local qualifiers.

It is worth discussing that some of the 16 key cities are not members of the Chinese Football Association, and in order to promote the development of youth football in key cities, the plan of direct access to the Youth Championship in key cities that are not members of the Chinese Football Association may be necessary.

The men's U17 group is likely to undergo a major overhaul. First, the size of the home and away regional leagues for seeded teams is likely to be expanded. At present, there are six seeded teams in Beijing, Shandong, and Henan (Shandong Taishan, Tsinghua High School, Beijing Guoan, Henan Experiment, Hebi Heteng, Henan Xingtu), and there are also six teams in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Anhui and Hubei (Shanghai Shenhua, Zhejiang, Hubei Youth Star, Shanghai Lucky Star Kangcheng, Jiangsu Jiangning Base, Hefei City Mantianxing), and four teams around the Greater Bay Area (Evergrande Football School U15, Evergrande Football School U14, Shenzhen Experimental School and Shenzhen Longhua), all of which are qualified to participate in the home-and-away system. The other seeded teams can play in a phased tournament format. In addition, the men's U17 group plans to adopt a relegation and relegation system, and the relevant plans are under investigation.

A common topic is that the Youth Championship has been facing great financial pressure in the development process. At present, the funds for the China Youth Championship mainly come from the funding of the China Football Development Foundation, but the relevant funds are far from enough, and the Chinese Football Association needs to carry out high subsidies, for which the Chinese Football Association is under great financial pressure.

The use of funds for the Youth Championships, one of which is used for the finals of each group and the men's U19 group, including organizational funds, broadcast funds and team participation subsidies, of which the full live broadcast of the men's U13 group and the men's U15 group needs to increase investment; second, it is used for events similar to the men's U17 regional competition and the home and away regional leagues, in which the home and away competition system needs to increase investment; Finally, there is a subsidy for the local qualifiers. As the scale of the local qualifiers gradually expands, the amount of funds spent on this part will also increase.

Junior events are theoretically attractive to merchants, but no breakthrough has yet been made. Commercial operation is naturally the direction of the future efforts of the China Youth Championships, but at present, it is actually necessary to coordinate with appropriate state-owned enterprises or central enterprises to increase sponsorship for the China Youth Championships and comprehensively help the development of Chinese youth football.

In addition, in terms of local qualifiers, the local sports system and the local education system should jointly fund, and the relevant funds of the Youth Games need to be included in the budget in the education funds.