Data tells the truth: what is the Chinese youth soccer training industry like?

This summer, a set of new policies introduced by the Chinese Football Association (CFA) has triggered a heated debate in China. Through these policies, the Under-23 players enjoy an unprecedentedly high "status" in the Chinese Super League (CSL). Rather than speaking about the potential results and outcomes of these policies, I would like to discuss the source of these players.

The one and the most important source in "producing" these young talents is the youth training system featured in every professional soccer club. However, there is a wider world outside of these clubs such as youth training courses offered by sports companies and other social investments which could be another way of finding these young players. 

The State Council of the PRC launched its soccer reform scheme in 2015, while the National Development and Reform Commission unveiled their soccer development plan (2016-2025) in 2016. Both schemes emphasized the importance of developing and coaching young soccer players, which led to the immediate activation of the soccer training market in China and resulted in an increase in the number of youth soccer training companies. 

So, what does the market currently look like today? 

The soccer agency Airgoal Football Academy carried out a wide-ranging survey to find out how the youth soccer training market is currently operating in China and to assess what problems the organizations in the market are facing.

As the one-child policy was eased and the second-child policy was implemented in 2015, China is presently seeing a new baby boom - nearly 60% of the 7.4 million newborns in China in the first five months of 2017 are the second or third children of the family and experts say the birth of the second children is set to peak this year. On the other hand, Chinese people have shown a more positive attitude towards participating in sport, which has resulted in more and more parents allowing their children to develop an interest in sport.

Both of those facts mentioned above have brought new opportunities for the youth sports training industry, including the soccer training industry. However, the soccer coaching organizations in China do not seem primed to embrace these opportunities. 

According to the data collected by Airgoal, there are over 6,000 organizations offering soccer training courses for teenagers in China, but 80% of them failed to be profitable. Generally, the top 1 or 2 organizations in each city are more likely to have a longer history, which means they have gained rich experience in training course design, management and operations. Because of these factors they have had better financial performances, while the rest are facing various problems including ineffective management and daily operations.

Airgoal conducted surveys with 130 organizations and the following list identifies the top 8 problems regarded as the biggest problem facing these organizations:

1.Coaches (lack of coaches or their poor performance) – 69.77%

2.Enrollment of trainees – 65.32%

3.Facilities (lack of pitches, facilities and office rooms) – 49.61%

4.Organizing the events – 48.06%

5.Club’s culture and curriculum – 46.51%

6.Relationship with trainees’ parents – 41.86%

7.Trainee management – 38.76%

8.Profitability – 33.33% 

In the 130 organizations, 54.26% of them had less than 200 trainees. Those organizations with over 500 trainees only make up 15.5% of the total while ten organizations had over 2,000 trainees and the rest had an enrollment between 201 and 499. 

As to the training session frequency of these organizations, those organizations aimed at  growing the sports interest of their participants (which make up over 60% in this market) tend to offer courses once or twice a week, while those aiming to develop professional players would carry out 5 to 7 times courses a week. 

To keep the anonymity of the participating organizations, the report did not disclose any detailed financial performance, but they did reveal where these organizations get their revenue and how they spend the money. The sources of revenue include regular training fees, income from summer or winter training camps, merchandise and other soccer-related services. Expenditure includes the coach's salary, pitch-rental fees, facilities expenses, marketing, management, business development, taxes and training courses for coaches. 

Taking the data into account and its findings, we can say that the youth soccer training industry in China is still in its early phase. In this period, coaches, trainees and facilities are the most important aspects for any organization. But if any organization wants to have sustainable development, they have to consider other aspects alongside those three we have mentioned previously, including how to design and deliver their training services and how to make it more profitable by creating other sources of revenue and saving on expenditure. The findings of these results may provide invaluable information to the leaders of the training courses in the short term but our consensus is that developing this industry will take time. 

Proofread by Raymond Fitzpatrick