The owner of China's most successful soccer club has predicted big things for the Chinese national team in the next two years. [Special coverage]
"I have a feeling China's national team will make a big step forward this year and in the next year," said Xu Jiayin, who owns Chinese Super League champion Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao FC.
"Why? Because now the head coach (World Cup winner Marcello Lippi) is of a world-class level, while the administration model means the head coach is the one making the decisions, under guidance from the president of the Chinese Football Association."
Xu, chairman of Evergrande Group, a major real estate developer, and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, was speaking at a news conference today on the sidelines of the CPPCC's annual session.
He also said it was only a matter of time before China is producing world-class players on the same level as Lionel Messi of Barcelona and Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo.
Guangzhou Evergrande's youth academy has 2,800 students age 7 to 16, making it the largest soccer school in the world, according to Xu.
"So far, we haven't found a Messi or a Ronaldo," he said, but he added that as long as China puts its full efforts into training young players, many excellent ones will be discovered.
After a winter that saw Chinese clubs make several big-money signings, Xu said the focus should now switch to the future. "We must invest in training young soccer players," he stressed.
China's soccer market has boomed in recent years and is now the biggest market in Asia, he said, adding that the quality of the domestic league, the CSL has improved a lot.
He said the soccer industry employed only 28,000 people when his company began to invest in the sport seven years ago. Today, it is a reported 500,000 to 600,000.
