Campus football urgently needs to make up for its shortcomings, and its role needs to be clarified
2022-05-11 10:04:29Source: Workers Daily
The “Key Points of National Youth Campus Football Work in 2022” (hereinafter referred to as “Key Points”) issued by the National Youth Campus Football Work Leading Group was officially released recently.
The “Key Points” mentioned that campus football will deepen the integration mechanism of sports and education this year, promote the reform of the youth training system, jointly improve the construction standards, selection mechanism, quality assessment and other working mechanisms of football characteristic schools, and continue to promote the high-quality development of campus football in the new era. .
Since the Ministry of Education, the State Sports General Administration and other 6 departments issued the “Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Youth Campus Football” in July 2015, the development of campus football in my country has entered the “fast lane” and achieved remarkable results. However, in the face of the severe situation that Chinese football, especially professional football and national football teams have suffered continuous setbacks, campus football, which is an important part of China’s football infrastructure construction, also needs to make up for its shortcomings in promoting the healthy growth of young people and cultivating campus football culture and New breakthroughs have been made in football talents.
Two major shortcomings are still prominent
“If there is no impact of the epidemic, this period should be the ‘golden period’ of youth football training every year, and the training courses will be fully arranged 7 days a week.” A football club responsible for youth football training at the Beijing Olympic Sports Center told reporters.
From more than 100 training institutions in 2020 to nearly 200 at the beginning of this year, Beijing youth football training institutions, venues and the number of participants have continued to expand in the past two years. However, behind the continuous popularity of the youth football training market, it is highlighting the two shortcomings that have plagued the development of campus football for many years, namely, the lack of teachers and venues.
According to the “2021 China Football Stadium Market Analysis Report” released by Guanyan Report Network, there are about 186,000 football fields in my country by the end of 2020, of which campus football fields account for about 80%. It seems that the absolute number is quite large, but compared with the huge crowd of 529,300 schools of all levels and types in my country with 291 million students (the Ministry of Education’s 2021 national education statistics), the number of venues is still insufficient.
Even for the established school football fields, many of them are difficult to meet the standard requirements and can only meet the basic teaching tasks. In addition, many campus venues are only open during teaching, and there is no venue for students to play football after class, which reduces students’ interest in participating in campus football.
A previous survey by the Chinese Academy of Educational Sciences on nearly 10,000 primary and secondary school principals across the country showed that 91% of principals believed that teachers were the primary factor affecting the development of campus football. Industry insiders admitted in an interview that the lack of professional football teachers and excellent grassroots football coaches has always been one of the main reasons for hindering the development of campus football.
Role to be clarified
In view of the main shortcomings of the development of campus football, the newly released “Key Points” clearly proposes to continue to vigorously promote the construction of campus football fields. An additional 20,000 (blocks) of campus football fields will be added. At the same time, the “Key Points” also proposed to encourage the two-way opening of community football fields and school football fields to improve the efficiency of venue utilization.
On the issue of campus football teachers, Li Chunman, a professor at Beijing Sports University and deputy director of the National Youth Campus Football Expert Committee, believes that on the basis of continuously strengthening the construction of teachers, the school must also strive to be in line with the training system of the Chinese Football Association-level coaches. “It is necessary to better mobilize resources from all over the world, train retired players with good football experience through coaching, and hire them to teach in football schools to ensure that children have a good foundation in the stage of football enlightenment.”
It is worth mentioning that in the previously released “Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Youth Campus Football”, it is clear that the key tasks for the development of campus football are: improving the popularization level of campus football; deepening the reform of football teaching; Campus football competition system; smooth growth channel for outstanding football seedlings. After nearly seven years of practice, many experts and industry insiders have called for the role of campus football in the overall development of Chinese football to be further clarified.
Zhang Lu, deputy director of the Strategic Planning Committee of the Chinese Football Association and a member of the National Campus Football Expert Committee, admitted in an interview with the media that the most important thing for campus football is to create a campus football culture. .
Wang Dengfeng, director of the Department of Sports, Health and Art Education of the Ministry of Education, clearly stated when talking about the experience of campus football, the implementation of campus football is the key: “The ultimate goal of campus football is to cultivate a large number of outstanding mathematicians who like football and can play football. Homes, physicists, biologists, lawyers, judges, police officers, teachers, civil servants and, of course, a handful of good footballers with solid cultural roots.”
Consolidate the foundation for a long time
On the whole, one of the successful experiences of developed countries in the world is to do a solid job in grassroots football and youth development, establish a youth reserve talent training system based on the reality and characteristics of the country, formulate long-term development plans, High-quality coach training, and systematic adherence to high-level youth selection and training for many years.
Comparing the two, what Chinese football lacks most at this stage is precisely the “training system for young reserve talents based on the reality and characteristics of the country”. When neither professional sports school training nor so-called professional club training can undertake the important task of Chinese football youth training, campus football can play a more active role in popularizing football culture and expanding the football population.
In this regard, Li Chunman pointed out that the most important thing for campus football is the combination of teaching and sports, “summarizing the shortcomings of the past, analyzing foreign development experience, and exploring and establishing a youth training system that conforms to my country’s national conditions and characteristics.”
The “Key Points” this time and the “Key Points of Work for 2022” issued by the Ministry of Education in February this year mentioned that the Chinese Youth Football League will be promoted. This has also become the focus of many football people.
It is reported that this league will break the competition barriers of the previous education and sports system, take the league as the benchmark, take into account education, sports, football associations and international and domestic invitational competitions, realize the orderly connection of local events, national events and even international events, so as to establish a stable Youth competition system.
“If the competition expectations can be successfully realized, it means that the national youth football competition system, or the Chinese football youth training and campus football system will usher in major changes.” An insider said in an interview: “But the most important thing is not to be utilitarian. Consolidating the foundation of football is a systematic project, and it can only be done for a long time.”
(Lee Won-ho)