Donations

That is part of the reason Alipay supports women's soccer. Two years before the company announced its donation, it started supporting female players in Qiongzhong Li and Miao autonomous county on the southern island province of Hainan.

"The 1 billion yuan initiative is an extension and expansion of Alipay's two-year-long program to support girls' football in the county, where several girls are enrolled in the national youth team," said Wang Ling, a public relations representative with Alipay.

Having seen the success of the program in Qiongzhong, Alipay has expanded its philanthropic efforts to provide long-term support aimed at improving the performance of the Chinese women's national team, along with related initiatives. In addition to the 1 billion yuan donation, the company has started the Wind Rider project, which will see it provide money for girls' teams independently in rural areas.

While Alipay said its donation to women's soccer is the largest by any donor to date, several professionals in the field said funding is still far from sufficient.

Chen Zhengzhi, a sports professional who has run a youth soccer program for seven years and is based in the United States, said funds alone will not be enough to help develop women's soccer.

"Funds only solve 70 or 80 percent of the problem," he said. "The remaining 20 or 30 percent is up to a lot of other people to solve."

Sun Chao, owner of the Sunrise Football Academy, felt that donations from one company would not be enough to support women's soccer in China, and more companies would soon follow Alipay's lead.

He noted that large-scale investment is not forthcoming because the commercial value of women's soccer is low, and said this is why women's soccer has not prospered in China in recent years.

"Before, the country invested in women's soccer and there was no commercial investment involved," Sun said. "But now, even after many sports in China such as soccer started to commercialize, there is no market and there are not enough funds to support it. These factors have led to Chinese women's soccer falling in the global rankings."

Sun's thoughts were echoed by Yu Yun, head coach of professional women's soccer team BG Phoenix, who said the current level of investment in women's soccer is much lower than in the men's game.

"When comparing investment in men's and women's soccer, the gap is still very wide," he said.

Sitting in the stands in Beijing's Xiannongyun Sports Stadium early last month, Yu closely watched BG Phoenix play a practice game. Having won a China Women's Super League match in Henan province the previous weekend, the players were focused on winning a game in Guangdong province the following day.

The victory in Henan had put them in fourth place, so they hoped that winning the game in Guangdong would place them third out of the eight teams in the league.

Ma Xiaolan, a 20-year-old university student who is contracted to BG Phoenix, wants to see the team do well in league matches, but, as an athlete who plays the sport well, she also wants to help change Chinese women's soccer.

"The attention focused on women's soccer is really low now," she said. "Because of the state of women's soccer in China, I really want to change it. Whether it is the efforts of one person or a group, we still want changes."