Reuters, Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:29am BST

By Nick Mulvenney

BEIJING, June 23 (Reuters) - Soccer in China is dead and the lack of a grassroots base is hampering the chances of a quick revival, according to the author of a new book about the world’s favourite sport in its most populous country.

China first victory in their Asian qualifying group for the 2010 World Cup against Australia on Sunday was too little, too late and they now have no chance of appearing at international soccer’s top table until 2014.

Rowan Simons, whose book “Bamboo Goalposts” was published last month, believes that only widespread reform of the whole footballing structure in China can save it.

“It’s dead, in my view, it’s never had a life,” the 41-year-old Briton said in an interview.

“It’s always been about the elite, you can do that with minor sports but not football… unless something is done soon, it’ll be the end of football in China altogether.”

Simons arrived in China in 1987 and has remained for much of the last 21 years, enjoying fame as a football commentator for Beijing TV and running a couple of media companies as well as China Club Football.

At the end of the 1990, he witnessed China’s football boom and was also around when it petered out after China’s sole appearance to date at the World Cup finals in 2002.

“For a couple years it looked like China might become a footballing power but, with hindsight, it’s easy to say why that wasn’t real, because there’s no grassroots, there’s no pyramid,” he said.

“Corruption became an issue… with referees getting large bundles of cash and then being replenished at halftime to make sure the second half went the same,” he added.

Simons thought about how to save the game he loved in the country he now considered his home and decided they needed to go back to an era that was “clean and pure”.

ELITIST SYSTEM

Settling on the 19th century when the game was growing as an amateur sport in Britain, he and his partners came up with China Club Football. Like everything else in China, running an amateur football club would require official permission.

“I don’t think they understood what we were trying to do because it’s an elitist system in China and the Chinese Football Association (CFA) doesn’t have amateur football in its remit,” he said.

“In their thinking this was stupid, ‘Why would you get involved with football for people who will never be any good at it?’ They said ‘you’re mad but go ahead’.”

The club now has 60,000 members with more than 100 teams playing weekly five-a-side competitions.

“It’s a mission, the goal is to have the largest amateur football network in the world.”

Simons points out that in FIFA’s “Big Count” in 2006, China had only 708,754 amateur and youth players from a population of 1.3 billion compared to 738,800 from 41 million in England.

“If China could get to the same level of participation as England, that’s an extra 40 million players,” he said. “It can happen really quickly if there’s political change.”

Simons was hoping August’s Beijing Olympics would be a catalyst for that change and that his book would be part of the conversation that preceded it.

“I wrote it for China, I wrote it for Chinese people and the Chinese government but it doesn’t look now like it will be published in China before the Games,” he said.

The Chinese system is not only bad for the game, Simons feels, but also contravenes FIFA’s rules on government interference in the game.

“Give China a bit of time, five years let’s say, and if they don’t get the government out of football, they should be banned from international competition,” he said.

“How can China still be a member of FIFA when the CFA is a government-controlled body and there are no elections to it at all?”

Simons believes there is a “massive groundswell” of support for reform.

“People feel disenfranchised, they feel angry at the way football is being treated and the way the national team always fails,” he said. “When will China be mature enough to allow people to organise their own football matches?” (Editing by John O’Brien)

官方翻译：

老外建言：中国足球已死 必须推倒重来
2008年 6月 24日 星期二 10:43 BJT

路透北京6月23日电(记者Nick Mulvenney)—英国人罗文(Rowan Simons)上个月出版了一本关于中国足球的新书《足球无疆》(Bamboo Goalposts)。他表示，中国足球已死，而且由于缺乏群众基础，其复苏恐怕也将十分缓慢。

中国足球队周日终于在与澳大利亚的比赛中赢得了2010世界杯外围赛的首场小组胜利，但这场胜利来得太晚了。现在中国队在2014年之前都不会再有机会出现在世界顶级赛场上。

罗文认为，只有全面的体制改革才能拯救中国足球。

“中国足球已经死了，在我看来，它甚至从来就没有活过，”41岁的罗文在接受采访时说。

“中国足球总是围着精英转，小的体育项目可以这样做，但足球不行。如果不马上做出改变，中国足球就全完了”。

罗文1987年来到中国，此後大部分时间都在这里度过。他在北京电视台担任足球评论员，开了两家媒体公司，还创立了北京万国群星足球俱乐部(China Club Football)。

他在1990年代目睹了中国足球的蓬勃发展，也目睹了2002年世界杯昙花一现後，中国足球的逐渐衰落。

“有几年，中国大有成为足球强国的趋势，但是没有。事後看来，我们很容易找到原因，那就是它没有群众基础，也就不可能有金字塔的塔尖，”他说。

“腐败也是问题，裁判赛前大叠大叠地收黑钱，中场休息的时候还要收一次，保证下半场继续那麽吹，”他说。

罗文已经把中国当成了自己的家，他总在思考如何在这里拯救这项他最热爱的运动。在他看来，中国足球需要重新回到“干净纯洁”的时代。

精英系统

就像19世纪足球刚刚做为一项业余运动兴起时那样，罗文和夥伴们创立了业余性质的万国群星俱乐部，并向政府申请批准。

“我认为他们并不知道我们要做什麽，因为中国的体育是精英体制，中国足协根本就不管业余足球的事，”他说。

“他们认为我们的想法很愚蠢，他们说：‘为什麽你们要让这些对足球没有用的人参与进来？’”

现在，俱乐部已经有了六万名会员，每个周末的五人制比赛都有100多个队参加。

“这是我们的使命，目标是建成世界上最大的业余足球网络”。

罗文援引国际足联2006年的资料称，中国拥有13亿人口，但业余和青少年足球运动员只有70.8万人。英国只有4,100万人口，业余和青少年足球运动员却有73.8万人。

“如果中国足球的参与度能达到英格兰的水平，运动员就会比现在多四千万，”他说。“如果现在进行体制改革，这个目标很快就能达到”。

“这本书是我为中国、中国人民和中国政府写的，但是在奥运会前恐怕不会有出版的机会，”他在谈及《足球无疆》时说。

罗文认为，中国的足球体制不仅不好，而且还违反了国际足联关于政府不得干预足球的规定。

“给中国一些时间，比如五年吧，如果他们的政府不退出足球，那就全球禁赛，”他说。“中国足协是一个政府控制的机构，完全没有选举，这样的情况下中国怎麽还能是国际足联的成员？”

罗文表示，他的改革建议赢得了广泛的支持：“人们感到自己没有权利，对足球的处境和国家队失利的方式感到愤怒。中国什麽时候才能足够成熟，让人们自己组织自己的足球比赛？”(完)

翻译：余乐 发稿：王丰