Xinhua News Agency, Xianghe, Hebei, August 22 (Reporters Wang Hengzhi and Yang Fan) On the 22nd, the much-anticipated 11th General Assembly of the Chinese Football Association opened at the National Football Training Base in Xianghe, Hebei. After the election, Chen Xuyuan was elected chairman of the Chinese Football Association. The conference also elected 35 executive members. Chen Xuyuan made a work report of the Chinese Football Association, revised the "Chinese Football Association Charter", and released the Chinese Football Association's 2017 and 2018 financial reports.

In the five years since the 10th Chinese Football Association General Assembly was held in January 2014, Chinese football has made certain progress and achievements in management system reform, club construction and league development, youth training system reform, youth football talent training, and professional talent training. At a time when football reform has entered a deep-water period, the change of the Chinese Football Association will definitely add new and strong impetus to the future reform of Chinese football.

The reform of the football management system is a key part of China’s football reform. Adjusting the Chinese Football Association is to raise the "leading head" of reform. To this end, the Chinese Football Association has decoupled from the General Administration of Sports, formed a new corporate governance structure, comprehensively promoted the construction of various systems in the football industry, and introduced the "Chinese Football Association 2020 Action Plan" to strengthen top-level design and overall planning; innovate talent selection and training mechanisms, and "let professionals do professional things" have become the new normal; under the leadership of strengthening party leadership, the Party Committee and the Discipline Inspection Commission have been established to continuously strengthen the construction of football ethics and anti-corruption work, providing a solid guarantee for deepening football reform.

It is worthy of recognition that in the face of many practical and difficult problems in the decoupling of local football associations, the Chinese Football Association has guided and promoted local football associations to "adjust reforms and strengthen organizations", and through financial and policy support, promote member associations to improve their organizational management systems and business development systems. The three provinces and cities of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Wuhan, Chengdu and Dalian have been identified as pilot areas for comprehensive football reform. Local football associations have promoted the development of local football through measures such as power adjustment, organizational building and resource integration.

The professional league is the window for Chinese football reform. The Chinese Super League has undergone earth-shaking changes in the past. The first is to comprehensively strengthen the legal construction of the league and introduce a complete set of industry management regulations. Secondly, the access policy system has been continuously improved, with the introduction of a number of new policies such as 18 measures to regulate the management of professional clubs. The club has been guided in an orderly manner to complete key tasks such as localization, training bases and youth training echelon standards. Financial supervision has been strengthened. Financial fairness policies such as signing adjustments and club investment caps, player salary caps and bonus caps have been implemented. "Yin and Yang contracts" have been strictly investigated and punished to promote the healthy and sustainable development of clubs.

A series of work deployments have significantly enhanced the fairness of the league and greatly increased its influence. In the 2018 season, the number of live spectators of the Chinese Super League reached 5.776 million, with an average of 24,000 per game, ranking sixth in the world; domestic TV audiences reached 337 million, new media broadcast nearly 2 billion, and overseas broadcasts covered 96 countries and regions around the world. The league's brand value has reached a record high, with the Chinese Super League's media rights sold for 11 billion yuan in 10 years.

The future of football lies with children. In the past five years, the Chinese Football Association has comprehensively deepened the reform of the youth training system, issued a series of policies such as the "165" Action Plan for the Construction of the Chinese Football Youth Training System, established a diversified reserve talent training system integrating the five major youth training systems, accelerated the layout of domestic and international youth training centers, and the influence of the Youth Super League has continued to expand, building a new era football youth training system of "five systems in one, two hearts and one game". At the same time, the Chinese Football Association’s youth training organizational structure has been reformed, a youth training director system has been established, and policies such as transfer and training compensation for young athletes have been improved.A number of campus football specialty schools and nearly 7,000 social football youth training institutions have initially formed a new pattern of coordinated development of "popularization" and "improvement" of youth football talent training.

In addition, the reform and development of the national team has achieved results, and the mental outlook and competition results of the men's and women's national football teams have improved. Through strengthening football publicity and promotion, amateur leagues have been widely carried out in various provinces, the number of amateur football participants and the number of registered clubs have continued to rise, and the development of social football has shown new vitality. The innovative method of decentralizing C and D level coach training to each member association and other professional talent training mechanisms has unleashed the potential of local football associations and rapidly expanded the scale of coach training. From the beginning of 2014 to the end of 2018, the Chinese Football Association trained a total of 48,913 coaches at all levels.

The signals and vitality released by the continuous reform have improved the development environment and atmosphere of Chinese football, greatly increased the enthusiasm of social capital to invest in football, greatly increased the value of football brands, active industrial development, and increasingly mature industrial chain elements such as football events, equipment, venues, and training.

At the same time, the Chinese Football Association also cooperates with the country's overall diplomatic strategy and gives full play to football's unique role in promoting international people-to-people and cultural exchanges. It has signed cooperation agreements with 21 national and regional football associations such as France and Germany, and established cooperative relationships with FIFA, AFC and UEFA. This year, the Chinese Football Association and FIFA signed a memorandum of cooperation and established a joint working group. This has allowed Chinese football to continue to strengthen its international voice. It successfully ran for FIFA directors twice in 2017 and 2019, and successfully applied for the 2023 Asian Cup, which has won a favorable international environment for the reform and development of my country's football.

The Football Association work report also pointed out that Chinese football still faces problems such as unreliable ideas for deepening reform, imperfect football management systems and mechanisms, unsatisfactory results of national teams at all levels, unbalanced and inadequate youth football development, and insufficient training of professional football talents. In the future, it is necessary to further rationalize the scientific management system, orderly promote the construction of national teams at all levels, improve the reserve talent training system, improve the professional league organizational mechanism, and lay a solid foundation for the development of social football sports.

Over the past five years, China’s football reform and development has achieved certain results, but it still faces a series of difficulties and challenges. Even though there have been twists and turns on the road, and there may be repetitions of this kind in the future, as long as we keep in mind the "big road" of "long-term success", only by adhering to the "big self" spirit of "success does not have to be mine", and resolutely abandoning the idea of ​​quick success and quick success, can Chinese football gradually improve its level, and let the positive football culture become one of the sources of positive energy for the Chinese people to realize the Chinese dream.