Chinese women's soccer faces uphill task

Sponsoring men's soccer clubs is burning cash but your hands can be warmed, while sponsoring women's can only freeze your heart, a women's soccer insider told Xinhua on Wednesday.

Wang Zhiyu, general manager of the Changchun Huaxin Dazhong Women's Soccer Club, said that fund shortage and poor reserves are the bottlenecks that kept the national women's soccer from resurgence.

Even after the club won the 2008/2009 National U-16 soccer league, the manager still felt the pinch, saying that he had to save the budget by cutting down the everyday expenditure.

There are 28 regular players and 26 reserve players in the club which estimatedly invested 3 million RMB (440,000 U.S. dollars) every year but is still in short of money. According to Wang, the regulars are paid 2-4 thousand RMB (290 to 590 U.S. dollars) per month while the reserves get no wages.

The club was founded 10 year ago and had won the national champion once and two champions of the U16 league. It also offered national members Guo Yue and Luo Xiaoxu.

And another problem is lacking of the players as the Chinese women's players, who used to make some splash in the 1990s, has been left no successors.

"Increasing soccer players is the most important factor that does help in developing sport," Ma Liangxing, former national women's coach said in the just concluded Chinese National Games.

According to Wang's analysis, the current parents are unwilling to send their kids to soccer clubs after the men's and women's soccer teams pulled off a string of bad results in different events. The betting scandal from the men's soccer also marred the image of Chinese soccer.

"Boys do not come to play soccer, much less girls," Ma said.

Source: Xinhua