The overall development plan of Chinese soccer

Major short-term (2016-2020) targets highlighted in the plan

1 School system: Increasing the number of school specializing in soccer education from 8,000 to 20,000; encouraging more than 30 million primary and secondary students to practice soccer regularly and have 5,000 school soccer trainers.

2 Social participation: Establishing a three-tier amateur competition system that includes grassroots club teams in 100 cities involving more than 50 million participants.

3 Fields: Build 70,000 soccer fields through refurbishment, transformation, and new construction to offer at least a half field for every 10,000 participants on average.

4 Training staff: Strengthening the development of local coaches and trainers by offering training to 10,000 relevant personnel.

5 Club: Developing two to three Chinese professional clubs; dominating Asian and well-known leagues by the world. All while expanding the appeal of China's top professional league worldwide.

Major long-term goals (2020-2050) highlighted in the plan

1 Maintaining diverse investments in all aspects of the game to involve more participants while offering at least one full field for every 10,000 participants.

2 Boosting soccer-related businesses into a driving force for the sports economy.

3 Developing the men's national team into a super power in Asia while driving the women's squad to a world elite group.

4 Transforming the country into a world soccer powerhouse while contributing greatly to the game's international growth realizing the "soccer dream" for the entire nation.

The current status of the game's development

1 A four-tier school competition system has been built with more than 100,000 school games organized involving 2.7 million students in 2015. A total number of 8,627 primary and secondary schools are offering soccer training and education while 135,000 school teachers and coaches were trained.

2 The social participation has been on the rise with more than 20,000 amateur games organized by regional soccer associations, enterprises, and non-governmental organizations in 2015.

3 A three-tier professional league system has been established with 52 clubs competing in the Chinese Super League, China's Serie A, and Serie B leagues.

4 Soccer-related businesses have been boosted as broadcasting rights for the Chinese Super League over the next five years were sold at 8 billion yuan ($1.2 billion).

5 The Chinese league has become an appealing destination for international stars as Chinese Super League clubs spent a staggering 334 million euros ($381 million) during the recent transfer window to lure a group of high-profile foreign players from Europe and South America to ply their trade in China.