China's first football training institute unveiled

Chengdu Sport University lately unveiled China's first-ever football training institute in the capital of Sichuan Province.

The Chengdu-based institute intends to hone and foster future educators of football, who are expected to teach primary and high school students. It also aims to train scouts and coaches to meet the country's growing demand for such.

The football training institute will be offering three programs: social guidance and management, sports training, and sports education. The faculty is composed of 20 top-notch members coming from the university's research and teaching departments.

Earlier this year, China launched a reform plan that aims to boost the sport in the country, laying out a roadmap as to how the government could provide football expertise to primary and secondary Chinese schools.

In Sichuan Province, around 600 football academies are needed to be built to set the 50,000-school target set by the national plan, requiring more teachers to fill out teaching positions.

According to Chengdu Sport University vice president Pan Xiaofei, a mere 60 students majoring in football graduated from the university. Out of them, only a few opted to teach the sports at local schools.

"Their recruitment plan is quite sports-category oriented, which reminds us of the fact what we should work to meet the demand and foster students on the basis of sport categories. The talent fostering mode is helpful for academic research and learning," Pan shared.

As part of the plan, the teaching hours of football courses will be increased to 829 per semester. New teaching plans covering athlete diseases, prevention and treatment are also underway.