Investment in soccer industry increasing in China

A group of children pose for the camera during a training session organized by Sport8 in Beijing. [Photo provided to China Daily]

An example of this model is the WinningLeague Luis Figo Soccer Academy in Beijing.

Figo is a former FIFA World Player of the Year and had an outstanding career at Real Madrid. WinningLeague is a major sports event company in China, while the academy is the largest private soccer school in the capital.

Opened in 2014, it now has 14 centers in different cities across the country, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Dalian, and employs 45 professional Portuguese coaches to train children between 4 and 12 years old.

"We will open four more schools in January as there is a high demand for these type of centers in China," Joaquim Preto, technical director at the academies, said, without disclosing financial figures. The chain of soccer schools has more than 4,000 students each paying 70 yuan ($11.1) for a one-hour training session, according to Preto.

Qiu Yi, a physical education teacher, decided to enroll his son at the Figo Academy because of the highly respected foreign coaching team.

"It is not just that they know the sport better, they also understand the kids better," Qiu said. "He now trains three times a week and he could not be happier."

In July, one of Italy's Serie A glamor clubs, Inter Milan, signed a five-year partnership deal with Yitao Shanghai soccer club to launch an academy in China, without disclosing financial details.

The Inter Academy works with 20 soccer schools, with 2,000 students, including the Jin Tao center. The training team comprises of two coaches from Italy and 80 from China.

"There will be 30 centers in the Shanghai area and the aim is to reach 100 soccer schools by the end of next year," Marco Monti, the Inter Academy technical director, said.

"As you can appreciate, the use of the Inter Academy brand does have a cost, but partners receive lots of commercial rights and these can be very beneficial."

Other major academies are in the works. Barcelona, which already has a soccer clinic in Wuhan, Hubei province, plans to open another one next month in Qingdao, Shandong province, in collaboration with Huanghai Pharmaceutical.

Under the deal, the Spanish club will send a team to recruit and train local coaches. Huanghai, one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in China, will construct and manage the training ground.

"China is a strategic market and extremely important for the club," Oscar Grau, director of Barcelona, said, adding that the center will coach more than 500 students.

Huanghai Pharmaceuticals and the Soccer Federation of Wuhan will cover tuition fees at the Barcelona academies, although they have yet to disclose detailed financial figures.

In the long-term, the creation of soccer clinics could generate commercial dividends for Chinese companies.

"Just think about it. If one of the academies found a single youngster that was good enough to play for a major club in Europe, it would produce huge marketing opportunities for those involved here," Yao at Oceans said.