Growing investments in football coaching courses

China plans to become a world football superpower by 2050, and in the process, to get 50 million children and adults playing football by 2020. It also aims to train 50,000 full-time and part-time football coaches by 2020.

But there remains a major shortage of qualified coaches in China, especially at the grassroots level. The preference for foreign coaches in China has translated into a serious neglect of investment in football coaching. In addition, many professional Chinese footballers plan to follow management or business career paths rather than coaching football after hanging up their boots.

This is a major and ongoing issue that the CFA plans to address by renewing its focus on the training of coaches. The quality of young players is in large part dependent on the quality of the instruction they receive from coaches. To this end, the CFA has taken steps to develop a network of high-quality grassroots coaches that prioritize two areas: coaching skills and eliciting widespread and continuing participation from schools.

The CFA last month said in a statement on their website that they have launched coaching training courses for football players in 48 professional clubs ranging from men's and women's Super League sides to clubs in the second-tier League One, helping the players to obtain coaching licenses.

But these developments do not mean that foreign coaching talent is going suddenly disappear from the league.

CFA vice-present Li Yuyi recently denied rumors that there would be any ban on foreign coaches in Chinese clubs.

"Chinese football is always open to the world, because we can always learn from high-level football talent," said Li Yuyi at a recent forum on financial risks in Chinese football. "We certainly are determined to develop domestic coaches and youth training, and that forms our foundation for footballing success," Li added.

Without a doubt, Chinese football has a long way to go before its talent level can match that seen in top European leagues or football giants like Brazil or Germany. Despite the challenges that remain, China, with its extensive resources (and the potential to utilize them to foster new talents both on the pitch and in the coaching box) is signaling to the world that it intends to quickly 'up its game.'