CELEBRITY EFFECT: Former England captain David Beckham, now the ambassador for Chinese soccer, greets teenage soccer players when visiting a middle school in Beijing on March 20 (GONG LEI)

"Age fraud starts from high school, and it's an open secret that schools hire professional players as 'external aids' for campus competitions to make officials happy," she said.

Former CFA official Lang Xiaonong recently proposed a five-point reform plan in his blog, calling for improving the management system of Chinese soccer, developing multi-level leagues including youth league matches, and putting more effort into cultivating young players.

However, the situation today is not optimistic. There are less than 10,000 Under-12 players registered in China, according to official statistics. In Japan, a country with around 10 percent of China's population, the number is more than 300,000.

China had 4,000 private clubs in the late 1990s, but only dozens now remain, said Liu Jiangnan, President of Evergrande Soccer School in south China's Guangdong Province.

Few Chinese Super League and China League One clubs have complete four- or five-level talent training systems, and even extravagant clubs like two-time top league champion Guangzhou Evergrande neglect training of young reserve players.

The shrinking soccer population and lagging training system are considered by former England captain David Beckham to be the major problems facing the sport in China. "The foundation construction might take 10 years or longer, but that's imperative," the ambassador for Chinese soccer told national broadcaster China Central Television on June 25.

Jin Zhiyang, the former coach of Beijing Guoan Club, believes that only "campus soccer" can redeem Chinese soccer.

"Playing soccer doesn't mean giving up on education if we take training back to campuses and establish a solid system to select children in different age groups and really improve facility construction. That could change the sport in 10 years," Jin said.

The CFA, in conjunction with the General Administration of Sport and the Ministry of Education, already has a program in place designed to develop soccer within schools. The China School Soccer Program covers some 90 cities and is conducted in thousands of schools across the country.

Youth development expert Tom Byer, renowned in Japan for his role in the development of a generation of male and female soccer players, has been hired as a head technical advisor to the program.

"This is a 10-year program aimed at all level of schools and universities," said Byer, who claims that the difference between the best and worst players in China is huge.

"Youth development is a marathon not a sprint. The good news is that in the beginning, the Chinese Government was imposing its will on the cities and schools but now the demand is so great, numbers had to be capped," Byer said.

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