China’s Grassroots Football Development Gets Intensive In Beijing West
Football eurythmics in Faku county, Shenyang
Party newspaper Beijing Daily reports that some 23 thousand students in Beijing’s Yanqing county will all play football at school.
The county’s education committee and sports bureau jointly issued a plan this week to promote school football project in the region. According to the plan, all students in elementary schools in Yanqing will be given a football and every class in senior high schools will receive theirs.
The county education committee commanded that “at least 20 percent of extracurricular fund be devoted to developing and promoting school football project.” The local officials are counting on the kids to achieve a goal of ‘everybody plays well and enjoys playing football’ in the next 3-5 years.
The school football project is a nationwide campaign that started four years ago by the Chinese Football Association, under the guidance of China’s state council, the cabinet.
There’s nothing wrong with the project and promoting the sport. But is this latest development in Yanqing going from one extreme to another?
