Understanding China’s School Football Fever in the Post-Beijing Olympic Era, 2009–2016: Policy and Practice

Abstract

This article aims to understand the current policies, practices, and challenges in the sphere of football training in schools of China by investigating campus football development in Anhui province. From 2009 to 2016, China has formulated policies to improve the popularity of football at the school level. With the Chinese government’s investment, the number of primary and secondary schools with specialized football training facilities has increased to 13,382 by 2016. These schools with football as a specialty (SFS) enjoy policy support in teaching, training, competitions, and in many other fields. By employing semistructured interviews, participatory observations as well as an analysis of various policy documents, this article provides an insight into the implementation of China’s school football policies by local government. It shows that these SFS have demonstrated desires and capacities to develop football performance in response to demands from the Chinese government. However, a number of developing issues exist in both SFS and non-SFS, such as lack of football fields for training and shortage of professionally qualified coaches as well as tensions between football training and other subjects learning. China still needs more time to fulfil her task for the promotion of grassroots football on campus and to achieve elite football dreams.