This Day, That Year

Editor's note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

On Dec 10, 1993, Shanghai Shenhua Football Club was founded, the country's first professional club.

It was also the start of a policy by the Chinese Football Association that allowed businesses to purchase and manage soccer clubs.

An item from Aug 25, 1998, in China Daily showed a Beijing Guo'an player scoring a header against Shanghai Shenhua in Beijing. The match ended in a 1-1 draw.

In 1994, the China professional soccer league was born. In April that year, the Chinese Jia-A League kicked off.

Under the supervision of the Chinese Football Association, Jia-A was the highest tier of professional soccer in China from 1994 to 2003.

In 2004, the Chinese Super League was created by rebranding Jia-A. The league is contested by 16 clubs in 240 matches of 30 rounds, starting in March and ending in November.

In recent years, the country's soccer sector has developed rapidly.

China has set an ambitious goal to join the world's soccer elite by 2050.

According to a soccer development plan released by the Chinese Football Association in 2016, 50 million players will join the game and 70,000 soccer pitches will be put into service across the country next year.

Meanwhile, the number of schools specializing in soccer will be increased from more than 8,000 to 20,000. It is aimed at encouraging more than 30 million primary and secondary school students to practice regularly.

The plan also calls for training 5,000 school soccer instructors within four years.

As the country aims to fulfill its soccer power ambition, many Chinese enterprises are showing a strong interest in buying European soccer clubs to learn how to run all aspects of the game and to also generate revenue.