EXPERTS ADVISORY

China aims to be a world soccer superpower by 2050 and has released a new strategy to accomplish the goal. The plan involves creating 70,000 fields and 20,000 training centers by 2020, with at least 50 million children and adults playing the sport.

Can China succeed? The following experts from the University of Michigan are available to discuss the country’s ambitions:

Mary Gallagher, associate professor of political science and director of the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, is an expert on Chinese politics, law and society.

“This new plan demonstrates the government’s penchant for long-term planning, for just about anything from subway lines to soccer teams. But I don’t think it solves some of the cultural and educational problems that will make it difficult to grow a mass youth soccer craze. In the U.S., youth soccer has expanded dramatically over the past few decades, but we are still far behind Europe. China has the added problem of an educational system that leaves very little space or time for sports. Will parents risk points on the college entrance exam, or ‘gaokao,’ for the chance to play soccer every day?”

Contact: 734-764-3566, metg@umich.edu

Andrei Markovits, professor of comparative politics and German studies, co-wrote the books “Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism” and “Gaming the World: How Sports Are Reshaping Global Politics and Culture.”

“It is very hard to buy such success in a team sport, not only football, because such sports are deeply anchored in popular culture and have everything to do with little kids playing them from when they start to walk. In other words, one cannot ‘plan’ these things from above like one can individual sports. Just look at the former East Germany or China for that matter. With the exception of that great Hungarian ‘golden team’ of the early to mid 1950s, no planning country’s soccer team ever attained world class.”

“This said, contemporary China is different because it is not only a planned system but also has a powerful market in which sports like association football, or soccer, have to be nested to be successful. Lastly, the world has totally changed since the internet and iPhones. Lionel Messi is every bit as much a presence in China as he is in Barcelona. Every Chinese kid can watch him play in real time. So yes, I can see China being a global association football power in 2050.”

Contact: 734-213-2226 or 734-905-0156, andymark@umich.edu