Business
20:47, 22-Sep-2017
School soccer: catching the fever pitch
["china"]
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Football, or soccer, whatever you call it, is without doubt the world’s most popular sport. Here in China, as the frenzy for the game heats up in schools, a flurry of businesses is looking to catch the fever pitch of this lucrative market.
Yuriy Storozhuk, a youth football coach from Spain, came to teach at a children's football summer camp in southwest China’s Yunnan Province, at the invitation of Asia Sports, a sports company focusing on agent and match services.
He said he was motivated by seeing youngsters’ understanding of the game improve.
At the same time, in Zhangbei, a county some around 300 kilometers from Beijing, Green Honor, another training company founded by two well-known former professional footballers, Deng Lejun and Xu Yunlong, also attracts soccer moms and soccer dads, who bring their children to the training camp for fun and exercise.
All this comes amid China’s growing frenzy for the world’s most popular sport.
Not only are training institutions benefiting from the boom, equipment suppliers are also laughing all the way to the bank.
Airgoal, a soccer equipment maker based in Guangzhou, capital of southeast China's Guangdong Province, produces cones, inflatable goals and barriers, and coaching kits, with a presence in over 40,000 schools in more than 50 countries and regions.
China has been promoting school soccer as part of efforts to develop the sport, as well as its related industries.
In a 2015 blueprint, the central government announced plans to make football as a signature sport for 20,000 schools within 10 years, which spells abundant business opportunities.
Poised to embrace this “golden decade”, industry players are scrambling for expansion.
Airgoal has launched its soccer training brand, in the hope of making its products better known and more widely used.
Asia Sports is looking to more than double the number of school partners to 800, in eight cities next year, while planning a stock market flotation and introducing big data in its training system.