In September 2018, Cai Zhenhua stepped down as deputy director of the General Administration of Sport of China. Just as he was saying goodbye to Chinese soccer, a new policy for young players crept in.
Since the 2017 season, the CFA has enacted a strict rule: "At least one player under the age of 23 must play in every match."
At the beginning of the season, teams had a muted reaction to this. But in the summer transfer window, in stark contrast to the previous clamor to bring in high-level foreign aid, teams suddenly became low-key, almost no longer bringing in heavyweight internal and external aid, and instead replenishing young players who meet the requirements of the Football Association.
At the age of 23, it has become an invisible shackle on the careers of young Chinese players.
Guangzhou Evergrande eschewed the domestic market and brought in young players such as Feng Boxuan, Deng Yubiao and Wu Xiang from the lower Portuguese leagues; Beijing Guoan scooped up Ning Weichen from Portugal's Cova Pidadi; and Shandong Luneng also sought out Wei Jingzong.
When the word "Portugal" comes up so often in the Chinese transfer market, people not only focus on the huge number of Chinese players studying abroad, but also wonder why they fit into the new policy of the Football Association (F.A.).
The introduction of the new policy of the Football Association almost overnight so that many clubs are facing a shortage of young players, the supply and demand relationship in the player market is instantly out of balance, and the social status of the age of the players has also risen.
At this point, if an agent has a large number of players of age in their hands, they can pretty much sit back and enjoy the ride.
As it happens, there was indeed a soccer agency that had numerous players of age on hand at the time.
National Youth Black Gold
In 2016, Li Ming, then head coach of the 97 National Youth Football League, cried foul in front of the media after the AYFD loss, but did not dare to admit that many obscure players suddenly appeared in the National Youth Football League team for the AYFD tournament, most of them coming from Portuguese third and fourth tier leagues, such as Gondomar and Guimarães.
During his tenure as national youth coach, the national youth team had vigorously recruited players from Starlight Hopscotch when they participated in international tournaments. After Li Ming's dismissal, half of the National Youth Team's players were eliminated.
After Li Ming's departure, Sun Jihai took over the coaching reins of the 97-year-old Olympic selection team and later became Hiddink's assistant coach. During his time as an assistant for Hiddink, Sun Jihai had already started a youth training program in Xinjiang, which was led by Xinghui Hesheng.
At the time Hiddink was almost hollowed out. During his time in charge of the Olympics, there were often seven or eight Starburst Hopscotch players on the field. And this team's results soared, no matter who the opponent was.
By the time Hao Wei severed ties with StarHub, he took over the team with three StarHub players, Yang Liyu, Huang Cong and Zhang Lingfeng, bringing with him an Asian Cup squad.
In addition to Yan Dinghao and Shan Huanhuan can not play due to injury, the former coach Wu Wei, Li Yang, Zhang Yuan, Lin Liangming, Yao Daogang brought the "Starlight Hesheng system" were cleaned by Hao Wei, replaced by Luneng youth training players.
This has almost become a "generation of the son of a court" a true portrayal of Chinese soccer is really no one available, the hidden behind the national youth black gold deal has become the most difficult to solve the puzzle.
Wade-Giles era
During the period when Wedi was in power, StarHub began to be closely tied to the Football Association. One of the company's masterpieces was finding Coach Rick Rink for the Nine-Thirds.
In August 2011, the new director of the soccer management center Wei Di in the start of the "youth study in Portugal" project, this planning, and will be promoted as a key project.
There were two agents in charge of the matter at the time, one was Qingdao's Chen Qi, the man behind Dabao's move to Benfica. The other was Guo Feng, the younger brother of Guo Hui, then head of the youth department of the Football Association, who later became the owner of Xinghui Hesheng.
Weidi left Chinese soccer in 2013, and the "Stay in Portugal Program" was 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 Xinghui Hesheng, gradually kicking off the export to domestic sales of Chinese soccer.
When Starlight's players continue to be channeled to the National Youth Olympics; when they can still be run as national junior coaches after Rieklink leaves the National Youth; when people close to Starlight continue to occupy national coaching positions; and when the policies put in place by the Football Association help Starlight stockpile a large number of players of the right age to make a lot of money at the top of the heap.
In Chinese soccer, this could be seen as a man-made disaster.
The Death of the New Deal
In 2017, the year the new FA policy was introduced, Lippi used only two players under the age of 23, Zhang Yuning and Deng Hanwen, in the remaining five matches of the Top 12. Zhang Yuning was still overseas at the time, while Deng Hanwen had become a starter for Guizhou Renhe before the new policy was introduced.
For the 2019 Asian Cup, Lippi didn't bring any players under the age of 23. Only Liu Yang, Liu Yiming and Wei Shihao made the roster, who emerged after the new policy was introduced.
At that time, Wei Shihao had not yet joined Evergrande, nor did he play for Hong Kong or Guoan. Liu Yiming was already the main center back for Tianjin Quanjian before the new policy was introduced. Only Liu Yang may be selected for the national team because of the new policy.
In the six years since the implementation of the FA's new policy, the national team's record has also been very poor.
In October 2018, Sung Yiu Tung led the Ninety-Nine National Youth Football League (NNYFL) to two consecutive losses at the Asian Youth Championships, earning only an inconsequential victory in the final round of the group stage.In 2019, Sung Yiu Tung led the Zero National Youth Football League (ZNYFL) to elimination at the qualifying stage of the Asian Youth Championships.
Under the leadership of fire-fighting coach Hao Wei, in January 2020, the 97th National Olympic Games, whose team rights have been changed several times, lost three consecutive group stage matches without scoring a single goal.
If many of the young players returning to China in early 2017 were still mainly on loan, the market for young Chinese soccer players went completely crazy after 2018.
Beijing Guoan signed Wei Shihao and paid more than 25 million in signing fees.At the end of 2017, Lippi's team publicly stated that He Chao is Zheng Zhi's successor, Evergrande, Quanjian and other clubs have inquired about it, and Yatai's offer was as high as 300 million yuan.
Not only did the new policy fail to produce talent, but the policy itself at one point sent the market price of age-appropriate players soaring, with agents and those players who benefited from the new policy profiting from it.
Without collusion of interest, such coincidences are too concentrated. How does StarHub predict the future market for young Chinese players? Why did the FA choose only the age of 23, simply because it met the age requirement for the Olympics? No one can believe the explanation behind this.
What untold secrets will be revealed by the network of relationships between Rieklinck, Portugal's retention program, the 1997 National Youth League, the National Olympic Committee, and Hiddink? Cai Zhenhua: From Li Ming to Sun Jihai, the cake of the "U23 New Deal" has been redistributed.
