The Western Pilot Program's impact goes beyond football

Reporter Chen Yong reports If you visit northern Shaanxi for the first time, expecting to see the traditional image of the Loess Plateau, you would surely think you've taken a wrong turn: the ravines remain, but the hills are covered in lush greenery. After decades of governance, especially over the past 20-plus years, with continuously improved composite vegetation management plans, the vegetation coverage rate of the Loess Plateau has risen from 31.6% in 1999 to 67% in 2024, and the annual sediment discharge of the Yellow River has decreased by over 80%. On this once barren plateau, arborvitae, sea buckthorn, caragana, and many other plants have deeply rooted themselves in the loess soil.

This area was once a football desert: modern football, born from industrial civilization and boosted by maritime culture, arrived later in these ravines than elsewhere. According to records in Zhidan County, football began there in 1972, when sent-down youth Zhang Xiaojian formed the county's first youth football team. Thanks to the persistence of generations of Zhidan football enthusiasts, and especially the implementation of the national football strategy—the Western Region Sports-Education Integration Youth Training System Pilot Program (hereinafter "Western Pilot Program")—in Zhidan, football has also taken root in the loess, just like the green grass and trees.

Zhidan has put into practice the principle of starting football with young children. Its early childhood football program has been running for 15 years. Zhidan is improving its own football system, focusing on upward pathways, innovating recruitment mechanisms, and creating a campus football league with a midweek/weekend home-and-away format. The "sports-education integration" aspect of the Western Pilot Program is deeply reflected here. Moreover, Zhidan not only works hard locally but also invites coaches from Dalian and South Korea, sends its teams to compete across the country, and invites teams from all over to Zhidan. The "youth training system construction" of the Western Pilot Program is also deeply demonstrated here.

In 2009, 8-year-old Fu Jie started football training. At that time, the Zhidan Football Association had been established for three years and had been cooperating with the Zhidan Education Bureau to enter schools for three years. Eleven years later, Fu Jie became the first male professional football player in Zhidan County's history. From 2020 to 2022, he played 14 matches in the China League One for Beijing Renhe and Heilongjiang Ice City. From 2024 to the present, he has played 47 matches in the China League Two for Yan'an Ronghai, Ganzhou Ruishi, and Qingdao Red Lions.

Over the years, football has taken root in Zhidan: 21 schools have been approved as national football characteristic schools, 3 kindergartens as national football characteristic kindergartens, and the campus football league has over 80 teams. The midweek/weekend home-and-away campus football league has been normalized, with over 6,000 young people regularly participating in training, and a football penetration rate of 30%.

Zhidan starts football with young children. They began developing early childhood football as early as 2011, including football games, mini-competitions, and football art exhibitions—all aimed at cultivating children's interest in football. Zhidan has built a comprehensive campus football league system covering high school, junior high, primary school upper division (grades 5-6), and primary school lower division (grades 3-4), as well as a mixed primary school group. A total of 84 teams from 25 schools participate. The primary school lower division (grades 3-4) fully adopts the midweek/weekend home-and-away format. Each school has well-established梯队 (tier teams), with schools like Shizhen Primary School and Hongxing Primary School maintaining six teams (boys and girls) for each grade group: grades 1-2, grades 3-4, and grades 5-6. In terms of the through-train system, taking high school enrollment as an example, the Zhidan County Football Development Center screens candidates, and then Zhidan County Longgang Experimental Middle School and Zhidan County Senior High School admit students based on both academic grades and football performance. In 2025, they will admit 30 and 48 students respectively.

At the institutional support level, Zhidan County has established a department-level (Zhengke level) Zhidan County Football Development Center, headed by Ding Changbao, who is also the chairman of the Zhidan County Football Association and one of the founders of Zhidan football. The Zhidan County Football Youth Training Center, with full national support, was put into use in July this year and quickly "intensified" its event schedule. Yan'an City and Zhidan County are also actively promoting the "3+4" through-train system construction for the Zhidan County Youth Football Sports School (a vocational secondary school).

During recent visits, the reporter noticed that not only Zhidan County but also other Western Pilot Program locations have their own football development characteristics: in campus football, Kashgar City's campus football super league implements a midweek/weekend home-and-away format; in social youth training, Yili Prefecture has carried out comprehensive star ratings for social youth training institutions to help improve Yili football youth training; in youth training center construction, Kashgar Prefecture and Yili Prefecture have repurposed sports schools to build city-level youth training centers and established comprehensive county-level youth training centers; at the professional football level, Dingnan County in Ganzhou City has two professional football clubs: Dingnan Ganlian (China League One) and Ganzhou Ruishi (China League Two).

Within less than a month after the Zhidan County Football Youth Training Center was put into use, it has successively hosted the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia U13 Football League commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Red Army's Long March, the Shaanxi Provincial Youth Campus Football League High School Finals, and the Third Century Famous Schools Football Elite Exchange Tournament (primary school group)—these are respectively a characteristic exchange event, a provincial-level official event, and a national-level exchange event.

This actually demonstrates that under the premise of using sports-education integration to improve its own football system, the "Western Pilot Program" also supports youth training system construction through multiple external exchanges, which include several levels: first, driving effects on the province and city; second, radiating effects on nearby provinces and cities; third, cooperation and exchanges with the eastern region; and fourth, more active international exchanges.

At the level of driving effects on the province and city: although Shaanxi Province has Xi'an, a national key football development city (hereinafter "key football city"), the province's terrain and climate span mean that Shaanxi football cannot rely solely on Xi'an; it needs more supporting players. The development of Zhidan football has driven the development of Yan'an football, and further driven the development of northern Shaanxi football. For example, Yulin City, the northernmost city in Shaanxi, is now on a fast track in football development. As for Kashgar and Yili, they are actually two leading dragons in Xinjiang football development. This year's Xinjiang Super League final was held between these two prefectures. Currently, football development in Urumqi, Kizilsu, Turpan, and other prefectures and cities is also very rapid. Guizhou football's "one main, four auxiliary" strategy takes the Western Pilot Program location Bijie as the main base, simultaneously promoting football development in four areas—Guiyang, Zunyi, Qiannan, and Qianxinan—thereby driving football development across the entire province.

The radiation to neighboring provinces and cities naturally emerges: Xi'an, as a key football city and major regional youth training center, originally radiates to the five northwest provinces. Zhidan, on the other hand, targets the coordinated development of football in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia border region. And the radiation goes beyond that. For example, the Third Century Famous Schools Football Elite Exchange Tournament (primary school group) included the Qumalai Keriesi team from Qinghai. Moreover, the Western Pilot Program locations are also developing synergistically.

East-west regional cooperation and exchanges have become routine. Starting in 2025, Kashgar's "Football Taishan Class" was established at the Middle School Affiliated to Shandong Normal University, with the first batch of 30 students studying for three years of high school. This year, 40 students will again set off in September to attend junior high and high school respectively, forming a regular mechanism in the future. Yili Prefecture has successively sent 95 female football players from U13 and U15 groups to Jiangsu Province for training and development. Zhidan County has cooperated with Dalian and several other cities, for example, bringing in former national team player Wang Tao from Dalian. Guizhou Province has established deep cooperation with Guangdong football, such as with Mingtu Football Club. Tongliao, which has just been included in the Western Pilot Program, mainly focuses on cooperation and exchanges with two key football cities: Shenyang and Dalian. These exchanges and cooperation include but are not limited to coach introduction, event cooperation, team visits, and training camps.

At the international exchange level, Zhidan County has hired Lee Jang-soo as honorary youth training director, along with a South Korean coaching team. Over the past two months, Lee Jang-soo has visited Zhidan three times for guidance. In Guizhou, the second Bijie "Tongxin Cup" National Youth Football Invitational Tournament is about to start, and the Guizhou "Xinghuo Cup" International Youth Football Invitational Tournament will be held from August 16 to 23. In Kashgar, the third "Kashgar Cup" International Youth Football Invitational Tournament will be held this year. Last year's event invited six teams from Russia and the five Central Asian countries, while the eastern region invited teams from Shandong Taishan, Beijing Guoan, Shanghai Shenhua, and Meizhou Hakka. In 2026, the fourth Yili Prefecture "Huoqing · Shiliuzi" International Youth Football Invitational Tournament will feature 10 Kazakhstani teams with a total of 163 players.

In the broader landscape of Chinese football, the "two pilots" were adjusted in 2026: Guangdong Meizhou and Jilin Yanbian retained only the key city status, no longer being Western Pilot Program locations. Tianjin and Shenyang newly entered the key city sequence, bringing the number of key cities to 18. The Western Pilot Program added Guangxi Guilin and Inner Mongolia Tongliao, still maintaining 8 pilot locations.

Nowadays, the Western Pilot Program is playing an increasingly important role in China's overall football strategy and youth training system construction, while also fulfilling multiple functions in China's modernization process, such as east-west exchanges, cultural integration, and opening up. The transformation of the Loess Plateau from yellow to green is hailed as "laying the ecological foundation for the sustainable development of Chinese-style modernization." The development of football on the Loess Plateau, including that of more Western Pilot Program locations, deeply roots itself in the soil through sports-education integration, and stretches its branches and leaves freely in the sunlight through exchanges and cooperation—showcasing the sports, cultural, and open-minded foundations of the sustainable development of Chinese-style modernization.

As Ding Changbao said: "Football brings children from afar to our hometown, and our children also take football to distant places."