The Evolution of Young Player Policy in Chinese Football
In September 2018, Cai Zhenhua stepped down as deputy director of the General Administration of Sport of China, and a year before that, a new policy for young players was quietly born.
Since the 2017 season, the CFA has enacted a rule requiring at least one player under the age of 23 to play in every match.
Initially, teams reacted tepidly to this, but when the summer transfer window opened, teams brought in young players on a low profile, replacing the big-name foreigners of the past.
At the age of 23, it has become the threshold of a young Chinese player's career.
Clubs such as Guangzhou Evergrande, Beijing Guoan and Shandong Luneng have imported young players from the lower Portuguese leagues, such as Feng Boxuan, Deng Yubiao and Wu Xiang.
When the word "Portugal" appears frequently in the Chinese transfer market, people are not only concerned about the size of the Chinese players studying in China, but also curious about how they happen to meet the requirements of the new policy.
The introduction of the new FA policy has led to a sudden lack of young players at clubs, an imbalance between supply and demand, and a rapid rise in the social status of players of the right age.
At this point, if an agent has a large number of players of age, they can pretty much sit back and enjoy the ride.
As it happens, a soccer agent did have a large number of players of age on hand at the time.
National Youth Black Gold
In 2016, then 97 National Youth Head Coach Li Ming was questioned by the media as to why no one was calling the shots after the loss at the Asian Youth Championships.
However, what Li Ming has failed to acknowledge publicly is the sudden appearance of many unheralded players in the national youth team for the Asian Youth Championships, mostly from Portugal's third and fourth divisions.
During his tenure as national youth coach, Li Ming had vigorously recruited players from Starlight Hopscotch, leading to a major increase in the strength of the national youth team.
Li Ming stepped down and Sun Jihai took over as coach of the 97-year-old Olympic selection team before becoming Hiddink's assistant coach.
At the time, during Hiddink's reign at the Olympics, there were often seven or eight star-studded Hopscotch players on the field.
Hao Wei took over and brought Star Fortune Hopscotch players such as Yang Liyu, Huang Cong and Zhang Lingfeng into the Asian Cup squad.
Hao Wei cleared the "Starlight Hershey line" of players and brought in Luneng's youth players.
This seems to be a reflection of "a generation of the son of a dynasty", Chinese soccer is really no one available, become a national youth black gold deal behind the puzzle.
Wade-Giles era
During the Wedi period, StarHub began to be tied to the FA.
In August 2011, Verdi launched the "Youth Study in Portugal" program with the aim of promoting this initiative.
Chen Qi and Guo Feng were the main people in charge of the project and later became the owners of StarHub.
Weidi left Chinese soccer in 2013, the "stay in Portugal program" is not completed.
Some of the players who stayed in Portugal broke away from the control of their original clubs and the Football Association and were recovered by Starlight Hopscotch, opening the door to the domestic sale of Chinese soccer.
When Starlight's players kept being sent to the National Youth Olympics; when Rick Link left the National Youth to become the National Junior Coach; when people close to Starlight kept becoming national coaches; and when the policies put in place by the Football Association helped Starlight stockpile a large number of players of the right age, they were able to sell them at a high price.
This could be seen as a man-made disaster.
The Death of the New Deal
With the introduction of the new FA policy in 2017, Lippi used Zhang Yuning and Deng Hanwen in the Top 12.
Lippi did not bring an under-23 player to the 2019 Asian Cup.
In the six years since the new FA policy was introduced, the national team has had a terrible record.
In October 2018, the Ninety-Nine Nation lost two consecutive games at the AYSO.
In 2019, Zero One National Youth was eliminated from the qualifying stage of the Asian Youth Championship.
In January 2020, the Ninety-Seven Nation lost three consecutive group stage matches.
After 2017, the market for young Chinese soccer players went crazy.
Beijing Guoan signed Wei Shihao, Evergrande, Quanjian and other clubs inquired about He Chao.
Not only did the new deal fail to develop talent, it also led to a spike in the market price of age-appropriate players.
How does Starfleet and Saxon understand China's young player market? Why did the FA choose 23 years old? It all begs the question.
The web of connections between Rieklinck, the Portuguese Reservation Program, the 97 National Youth, Hiddink and others hides more secrets.
Cai Zhenhua: From Li Ming to Sun Jihai, the cake of the "U23 new policy" has been redistributed.
