By Mark Baber
September 26 – At a meeting at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich, Chinese Football Association Vice Chairman and Secretary-General Zhang Jian (pictured) and FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke have signed a technical cooperation agreement aimed at improving the technical level of Chinese football coaches, referees, and managers, improving the national team at all levels of achievement, and promoting the development of youth and women’s soccer.
Back in 2011 FIFA and the Chinese Football Association signed a unique four-year technical cooperation agreement, as according to Valcke, the development of Chinese is beneficial to both sides.
As part of the technical cooperation agreement, FIFA has been sending a delegation to China every year, to discuss the implementation of action plans to help Chinese football, and the two sides have agreed this work will now continue.
On this trip to Zurich, Zhang Jian also participated in the FIFA Development Committee meeting where he briefed FIFA officials on the recent work of the Chinese Football Association. FIFA President, Sepp Blatter expressed confidence that Chinese football has unlimited potential, as long as the country stays focused and perseveres.
Although football is arguably the most popular sport in China, and the country does boast a large number of registered players, China fights below its weight in international and club football due to a variety of social, historical, technical and cultural factors.
In recent decades, China has been focused heavily on economic development and for the society, family and the individual (particularly in one-child families) an economically productive career path has been much preferred to the risky pursuit of a career in football.
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