Shanghai (AFP) – Her grandmother never wanted her to play football so 11-year-old Liu Chang’s father sneaked her out of the house when grandma wasn’t looking.
China qualified for next month’s Women’s World Cup for a seventh time in eight editions and boast a record that their men’s team can only envy.
But you do not have to scratch far below the surface to see that women’s football in China is struggling for recognition.
“China has a lot of people but there aren’t many playing football,” said Qian Hui, who is renowned for developing girl footballers in Shanghai.
“I think the people we choose to join the team are not necessarily the best, the best ones don’t always want to be selected,” said Qian, overseeing coaching at Jinshajiang Road Elementary School, which specialises in girls football.
“So we feel quite troubled.”
Liu, a skilful left winger, is among more than 100 girls aged seven to 18 who train five days a week under Qian and her fellow coaches. Matches are on Saturdays.
Underlining Qian’s point, Liu said she only got into the sport because her football-mad father wanted her to realise the dream he never fulfilled.
With no son, the onus fell on a reluctant Liu.
“I didn’t want to play at first but my dad sent me here,” she said.
“My grandma used to say girls shouldn’t play football and should dance or play piano.
“There was a time when my grandma went elsewhere to work and my dad sent me here while she wasn’t looking.”
– ‘Poor treatment’ –
President Xi Jinping has grand ambitions for Chinese football, including winning a World Cup.
China, 16th in the FIFA women’s rankings, are more likely than the men to achieve that — the men languish at 74th and reached the World Cup only once, when they exited without a point or a goal in 2002.
Yet women’s football gets little notice in China.
In contrast to large crowds and rabid fan followings enjoyed by some clubs in the men’s Chinese Super League, the domestic Women’s Super League receives scant publicity and games draw meagre attendances.
Qian paints a bleak picture for the development of the women’s game, saying parents often worry sport will get in the way of their daughters’ studies.
While that also applies to boys in China, some people, like Liu’s grandmother, simply don’t see football as something girls should play.
from World Soccer Talk http://bit.ly/2HPDSEE
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