China sets sights on World Cup

Then vice-president Xi Jinping prepares to kick a Gaelic football during a visit to Croke Park Stadium in Dublin, Ireland, in February 2012. [Photo/Xinhua]

The soccer reform initiative was first announced in February at a top-level meeting chaired by President Xi Jinping, who is a soccer fan.

"The key obstacle to China's progress in soccer is its current management system," the General Administration of Sport of China said in a statement released on Monday.

Tan Jianxiang, a professor of sports sociology at South China Normal University, said on Monday, "The new measures will help club owners gain some crucial rights, while making the CFA work only as a supervisor and supporter."

Sports industry specialists said implementation of the plan will have to be matched by efforts from the government's taxation, commerce and justice departments.

But they said that as soccer is the most influential and most difficult sport to improve in China, reforming it will set a national example. Once it succeeds, soccer reform can be emulated by the managers of other sports.

Chen Jian, vice-chairman of the China Association of Economic Structural Reform and a sports industry researcher, said soccer can be the first sports industry for China, and can play an important economic role by boosting consumer spending.

However, Zhang Jian, CFA secretary-general, said these radical institutional measures won't happen immediately.

National team player Jiang Zhipeng said China will have to learn soccer management from Europe.

Initially, the most important part of the forthcoming reform is to expand the game's participation base among young people.