The owner of the world’s biggest golf resort is joining China’s rush to soccer investment by building a Barcelona-backed academy aimed at breeding a new generation of “national heroes.”
Mission Hills, which has two giant golf complexes in southern China, hopes to house more than 1,000 children at its under-construction facility on Hainan Island, which is also to be a training center for China’s national team and top clubs.
It follows a stampede of Chinese investment in foreign clubs, players, coaches and media rights after Chinese President Xi Jinping said he wanted the world’s most populous nation to become a global soccer power.
Photo: AFP / POWER SPORT IMAGES / WEIXIANG LIM
Spanish superclub Barcelona is on board as a “strategic financial partner” and will provide coaching expertise at the new academy, Mission Hills vice-chairman Tenniel Chu told reporters.
Chu said the new academy, at its Haikou golf resort on Hainan, will be able to tap an enormous new market following Xi’s decree.
“The grassroots level is very important in growing the game,” he said in an interview at this week’s LeSports Connects sports forum at Mission Hills in Guangdong. “Our president Xi, as you know his dream is by 2020 to have 50 million full-time footballers... So we’re looking at a huge market in promoting the juniors’ development.”
China’s 83rd-ranked national team, often a source of disappointment for Chinese fans and now coached by Italy’s Marcello Lippi, are to use the academy as a winter training base.
China’s well-heeled top three clubs — Guangzhou Evergrande, Jiangsu Suning and Shanghai SIPG — will also train at the facility during the Chinese Super League’s off-season, Chu said.
The academy already has five pitches and will grow to 30, he said. “With 30 pitches you can accommodate up to 1,000 students at any time,” Chu said.
“Ultimately it’s to breed our own [Lionel] Messis, or Neymars or [David] Beckhams — our national heroes,” Chu said of the academy.
“It can stimulate aspiring juniors to have a go in life, just like what Yao Ming did with the NBA promoting basketball to the people of China,” he said.
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