Word: huilongguan
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...senior leaders now asking why Chinese football is in perpetual crisis, and they are looking for solutions. But even if the authorities don't take active steps to encourage private and community-owned networks, it will still happen. It's the people's game." And it seems that Huilongguan's future teams are already coming together. No longer an active player, Wang has started coaching about 60 young children every week. "It can be an unruly bunch," Wang chuckles before running over to help keep excited children from running out onto the pitch to help their dads...
...Huilongguan Super League takes its inspiration from the Community Shield, an English trophy that matches England's best professional team against its best amateur team for charity. "We came up with a slogan for the championship last year - 'Return sportsmanship to football, and let the people's sport remain a people's sport.' " Wang is not alone in his conviction. In recent years, amateur football leagues have started to catch on in larger neighborhoods in Beijing. On May 17, as 12 teams in the Huilongguan Super League played their 9th round, at least four other community championships were being played...
...Unlike many nations, where pickup games are played in town squares and neighborhood streets, football has never had a wide popular following in China. "Huilongguan Super League is still building the first stage of grassroots football, while in England, grassroots football is the base of the whole football pyramid," says Rowan Simons, a U.K. citizen who runs China's only legally registered amateur football club in China with about 3,500 members. According to FIFA's 2006 "big count," a survey of all its member associations, there were only 382,762 junior players in China. In England, there...
...people have an increasing amount of time and money to spend on leisure, more and more fans like Wang Yuyu are getting involved in building the game, though it is not an easy business. It took Wang almost six months to find sponsorship for this year's Huilongguan Super League. "I do worry about how far we can go," admits Wang. "We grew up watching football and we love this game. But if Chinese football does not reform, will our children still share the same passion...
...Chairman Wang, as some of the league members jokingly call him, runs the Huilongguan Super League, China's most influential grassroots soccer league. Huilongguan's members first met each other in 2002 through a classified ad posted on the suburb's community website. "We thought we'd have a kick around, but over 70 people showed up," Wang chuckles. The weekend kick around soon turned into eleven-a-side, and by 2004, nine teams and about 180 players competed in Huilongguan Super League's first championship. (See pictures of street basketball in China...