Xiamen should have its own professional team, said Su Meilong, vice chairman of the Xiamen Football Association, in an exclusive interview with Football Daily.
Recently, the 2024 "I Love Football" Xiamen Youth Football Tournament and the White Dolphin Cup Cross-Strait (Xiamen) Youth Football Tournament were held. This event has accumulated a lot of experience for the Xiamen Football Association in organizing large-scale events. At present, Xiamen's professional soccer is still a blank. Many people in Xiamen say that this beautiful and open seaside city should have its own professional team, which has always been a dream for me and the people of Xiamen," said Su Meilong.
Su Meilong is the vice president and secretary general of Xiamen Football Association. He used to play for the Xiamen professional soccer team. In the eyes of many, the Xiamen FA carries the soccer dreams of 5.3 million Xiamenites. Over the past 30 years of Chinese professional soccer, Xiamen has left its mark in China's top league. However, since the Xiamen Blue Lions, Xiamen soccer has disappeared from the top professional league for nearly 17 years.
Speaking about organizing the youth soccer tournament, Su Meilong said, "Through organizing the tournament, we have gained a lot of experience in planning and preparation, creative publicity and effective communication, teamwork and crisis response, which not only made us more mature and confident, but also laid a solid foundation for our future event planning and implementation."
It is worth mentioning that Xiamen has in recent years attached great importance to the urban impact of high-level events and high-level professional sports clubs on Xiamen. Earlier this year in May, the Xiamen Sports Bureau and the Xiamen Finance Bureau jointly issued a notice on the Implementation Measures for Funding and Incentives for High-Level Professional Sports Clubs in Xiamen (2024 Revision).
Funding is provided to professional soccer, basketball, volleyball and other professional sports clubs that participate in professional leagues under the team name of Champion "Xiamen" (with their home stadium located in Xiamen). Clubs participating in the Chinese Super League will be subsidized up to 20 million yuan per season; clubs participating in the Women's Super League will be subsidized up to 6 million yuan per season; clubs participating in the Men's Soccer League B or Women's Soccer League A will be subsidized up to 3 million yuan per season.
The key to the incentives introduced in Xiamen lies in their implementation. The establishment of high-quality teams is also one of the focuses of our work, including not only professional teams but also amateur teams," said Su Meilong. Xiamen Football Association will pay close attention to the three core tasks of youth training, team building and high-quality development, and continue to innovate institutional mechanisms and improve policies and measures to promote the sustainable and healthy development of Xiamen soccer."
Mr. P.C. Chan participated in the White Dolphin Cup as a special guest. In an interview, Mr. Chan Pak Cheung particularly mentioned the popularization and development of youth soccer. "I loved playing soccer when I was a kid. At first, I played center forward and wore the No. 9 jersey, then I played midfield and wore the No. 10 jersey. Although I didn't become a professional player, I never left soccer in my later work, whether it was singing or filming. I always considered soccer as my hobby."
"I'm 74 years old. People used to know me through movies or TV, but I didn't realize that soccer had given me another identity. A lot of kids may not have seen my movies, but through the Internet, they know that I can play soccer and I've played in tournaments like the Village Premier League. They think of me as a soccer player and that makes me feel happy. It is my desire to bring the love of soccer to children."
