By David Gold
September 1 – Wang Jianlin, the chairman of Dalian Wanda, has given the Chinese Football Association (CFA) 500 million yuan (£50 million/$81 million/€57 million) to fund a series of training and coaching programmes.
Internal debate over the state of the country’s football has been sparked since China lost 4-1 to Oman recently in qualifying for the London 2012 Olympic Games,
“The progress of Chinese soccer depends on the emergence of high-level young players,” Wei Di, the head of the CFA, told the China Daily.
The funding comes in the same week that Fluminense’s Dario Conca, who was voted the best player in last year’s Brazilian championship and helped guide his team to the title, moved to Chinese outfit Guangzhou Evergrande on a deal which reports said would earn him £9.5 million ($15.5m/€10.8 million) a year.
The deal puts the Argentine playmaker among the world’s best paid players, and the first high profile player to move to play in China during the peak of their career.
Wang, who used to fund the Dalian Wanda club which won a number of league championships in the 1990s, hopes that the number of young players in China will increase to over 700,000 and improve attendance levels at league games.
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