Arie Haan to set up football school program in China

AMSTERDAM, the Netherlands - Arie Haan was head coach of China in 2003 and 2004, he also worked at Chinese clubs, but he has no club at the moment and is currently setting up a program to stimulate football on Chinese schools, he told Xinhua.

A new Chinese club has not yet arrived for Haan. The 64-year-old coach still lives partly in Beijing with his Chinese girlfriend, partly in Spain and in addition once in a while he stays with his mother in Winschoten in the Dutch province of Groningen. He sometimes wonders how the selection of coaches is determined in China.

"Now Sven-Goran Eriksson went to China (as coach of Guangzhou R&F)," Haan told Xinhua. "I do not know what's behind it. They know my price. Maybe I have become too Chinese for the Chinese. They may prefer a real foreigner."

Haan hopes to be able to transfer some of his knowledge to the Chinese youth and therefore he became patron of a plan to give extensive football training at schools.

"We want them to be acquainted with football at a young age. Thus we begin in Beijing and then possibly in the rest of China. The problem with Chinese football is that the players have too little sense of football, they don't know how to play together. They were never taught, so we hope we can help."

In 2004 Haan led the Chinese national team to the final of the Asian Cup and he coached three Chinese clubs in recent years. The former Dutch international relegated with Chongqing Lifan in 2009 and led Tianjin Teda to the second place in the Super League and qualification for the Asian Champions League.

In 2011 he captured the Chinese Cup with Tianjin Teda. Haan worked without success at second-division side Shenyang Shenbei last year.