Beijing time on October 22, the second section of China Youth Football League U15 group final was held in Weifang. Shandong Taishan U15 beat Evergrande Soccer School U15 by two rounds 2-1. after the match, Song Kai, the president of New Soccer Association, attended the award ceremony and presented the trophy to the youngsters of Taishan.
This is Song Kai's first public appearance six days after he was elected president of the Chinese Football Association (CFA), and the first time the new CFA team has traveled to Beijing for research.
In contrast to the high profile of the previous soccer association before and after the emergence of the new team, Song Kai and his colleagues followed the principle of "silence is golden" before and after the fulfillment of the new team. After the soccer congress, there were almost no individual comments from Song Kai, except for reports from the central media. Although there were rumors that Song Kai would attend the opening ceremony of the CBA, it was eventually proved to be fake news.
As a result, the question of when Songkai would show up and when he would show up was for a while the center of attention for fans and media alike. In the end, the youth game on the night of October 22nd gave the answer.
"To revitalize soccer, we must first focus on youth training. In the future, the CFA will make youth training a top priority."
Facing the media, Songkai expressed the profound meaning of his first public appearance.
As for youth training, Song Kai said that on the one hand, high-level coaches should be encouraged to engage in youth training. "If the competition results are not good, it means first of all the training is not good. We don't have good coaches to do youth training. There is a big gap between the treatment of youth coaches and professional teams. This is a realistic problem that needs to be changed gradually. The CFA should try to guide the best coaches to master youth training through policy regulations and guidance."
On the other hand, it is necessary to establish a high-level and stable youth competition system, "At the age of 12, Chinese players are at the same level as Japanese and Korean players, but at the age of 16 there is a big gap, which is mainly due to the gap in the competition system. Only by participating in more high-level competitions can players keep growing. The problem with our competition system is that it is not stable. The youth competition system must be stable and can be reasonably improved, but the overall framework must remain the same." .
From these two aspects, we can see that Song Kai's philosophy as a practitioner of the traditional sports system does not mean that he believes that soccer needs to go back to the "traditional" direction. On the contrary, he believes that Chinese soccer is not open enough, and should continue to expand its openness.
"Chinese soccer can't be open!"
"At present, China's soccer youth training mainly includes professional clubs, professional sports teams, social organizations and campus soccer. The CFA first wants to consolidate the foundation and maintain it. It is unrealistic for Chinese soccer to completely return to the sports team model, but through the policy orientation of the National Games, it can improve the motivation of provinces and cities and increase their support for soccer."
"With the help of external forces, including inviting in, going out and naturalizing players, it is open to discussion. There is a gap between our understanding of youth training and developed soccer countries, so we should be humble and learn. The internationalization of youth training is very important. According to statistics, there are 137 registered foreign teachers in China, and we will continue to improve the internationalization of youth coaches in the future. Youth leagues can also consider relaxing nationality restrictions to increase exchange opportunities."
In addition to expanding the openness of youth training levels, Songkai also believes that the openness of the league should be further expanded. According to Songkai, many industries have proved that only with full competition in an open market can we produce low-priced, high-quality products. Now the AFC is relaxing restrictions on foreign aid, the Saudi league plans to increase the quota of foreign aid to 10 per team, others are opening up, Chinese soccer is not.
This shows that Song Kai's thinking about soccer is to force the level of competition among Chinese players by raising the level of competition and allowing more capable people to emerge.
However, Song Kai thinks that we still need to fully discuss what kind of policy will be formed by these ideas, and we should not worry about it. It will take a year for all parties to fully discuss and think things through, and then implement them step by step.
As for some of the previous policies in Chinese soccer and the league that have sparked public controversy, Song Kai admits that these policies cannot be repeated in the future.
"In the future, the CFA will not be able to introduce 'wonderful' policies such as the 'National Team League' and the 'U23 Player Policy'. The CFA must meet social expectations in order to introduce new policies, and this is the first bottom line of my tenure."
