Dominate the Country

The Guardian reported on July 25: At 4 pm on July 25, London time, the British men’s football team lost to its opponent 1 to 4 in its first match against the Chinese men’s football national team. In an interview after the game, the British team coach Mr. Wood Hanks sincerely lamented that the overall strength of the opponent was still strong.

In the first half of the game, relying on abundant physical fitness and tenacious defense, the British football team was in a stalemate with their opponents. Although the Chinese team scored first, the British team immediately changed colors without showing any signs of weakness. But as the British players' physical strength declined in the second half, the Chinese team began to show dominance on the court. They quickly took the initiative on the court and kept firmly suppressing the British team, and finally achieved a 4:1 victory.

It is worth mentioning that coach Wood Hanks played for Songhu Football Club in China when he was young and achieved outstanding results. He later became a coach and achieved very good results, and served as the head coach of the national team for the first time in 1965. The last time he led his team to play against the Chinese team was 10 years ago. That year was the fourth time that the British team qualified for the World Cup, and their first opponent in the group stage was the Chinese team. But it is not the national football team of China, but the northwest representative team of Chinese football. That World Cup was also the last appearance of the Chinese football division team in the World Cup. Since then, the ranking of the highest awards in world football has changed drastically. The gold content of the "China Universiade Men's Football Champion", which was originally known as the Mini World Cup, surpassed the World Cup in one fell swoop.

Ten years have passed, and now only goalkeeper James is still playing for the British team. The British team has experienced ups and downs in these ten years, but the Chinese football team has always maintained the world's top football team. Competitiveness, this also makes Coach Wood Hanks quite emotional.

"It has been 10 years, and the feeling is definitely different, but there are also many similarities. In the past 10 years, the British team has changed several batches of players, and their strength has gone up and down, but China's football competition remains the same. Strong, they have too many good players. We are making progress, and they are always pursuing and exploring new and stronger paths," said coach Wood Hanks.

The reporter interviewed many members of the British team, and many people said that the performance of the Chinese men's football team is just like their country's comprehensive sports strength. It has always been powerful and disappointing.

Now the quadrennial World Athletic Conference has kicked off again. After a bad start, the Chinese team's performance quickly got on the right track. 10-meter air pistol, diving, weightlifting, swimming and other events have blossomed one after another. So far, Already 10 golds, 5 silvers and 5 bronzes have been obtained, firmly occupying the top spot in the medal list. The British team's performance is also very good. It has five gold medals and ranks third in the medal list. This is an achievement worth celebrating. If this position can be maintained, it will be a new breakthrough in British sports. However, there are always some discordant noises mixed in with the cheers of celebration, such as "failure to popularize sports for all", "backward national system", "wasting people and money" and other curses these days.

On the opening day of the Delhi Athletic Competition, Chinese Minister of Culture, Education and Sports Chen Tong met with representatives of the Chinese Athletic Competition delegation. These voices were the strongest. Some people must have said that Chinese sports is not a national system and does not cost taxpayers a penny. All are borne by sponsors; people do not pursue gold medals, and participating in competitive competitions is a spontaneous hobby. China is a real sports country that has achieved comprehensive popularization of sports. What a ridiculous statement!

In the eyes of these people, Chinese families need to bear most or all of the expenses to train an athlete. An international swimmer can be trained in the swimming pool (or bathtub) at home; there are countless good runners hidden in the streets and alleys. , if you select a few, you can surpass the physical limits of yellow people and win medals again and again, and compete with white and black people in this most dominant sport of the Western race.

Is this really the case?

Do Chinese people really not value gold medals? Don’t you value athletic performance?

The truth is quite the opposite. Not only do Chinese people regard athletic competition gold medal winners as national heroes, the Chinese government also pays special attention to the number of gold medals. To what extent does it matter? Every year, the government's funding is directly linked to the results of this project - the number of gold medals, and performance appraisals are implemented! The China Competitive Sports Commission distributes about 2 billion in funds to more than 40 domestic sports associations every year. Chen Gui, the current CEO of the China Competitive Sports Commission, particularly advocates the "performance salary" distribution model. He is like a Like venture capital investors, funding is determined based on the ability of each sports association to monetize medals.

After 1976, the Chinese delegation's most award-winning and influential competitive events: table tennis, badminton, shooting, diving, football, basketball, polo, fighting, ice and snow sports, gymnastics and speed skating, received the most financial support from the Chinese Athletic Sports Committee, totaling about 5.85 billion yuan, accounting for 60% of the total funds in recent years. At the same time, because track and field and swimming have more individual events, which means the opportunity to win more medals, the cost-effectiveness is quite high, so the Chinese Athletic Sports Committee is also willing to give more funds to these two events. In addition, basketball has a greater influence. Although such competitions can only provide one team medal in the end, and these events often have a lot of sponsor support fees, the probability of the Chinese men's basketball team winning the championship will not decrease due to the reduction of funds - basketball, like track and field, is one of the few competitive events in Europe that can occupy a large advantage, but the Chinese Athletic Sports Committee is still willing to allocate them enough financial support because basketball is very popular among Chinese audiences.

Let's look at the other side of the coin. Since China's modern equestrianism, European fencing and boxing did not achieve good results in the first two competitions, the Chinese Sports Committee quickly reduced its financial support for these projects. Among them, the investment in modern equestrianism this year has dropped to the lowest level in nearly 20 years. The sailing project, which also requires a lot of investment, suffered a disastrous defeat in the last competition, which also caused the Chinese Sports Committee to drastically cut its investment in this project, although the Chinese sailing team has always performed well in this competition.

Therefore, China's sports glory is also built on the investment of national funds. The amount of funds their domestic sports projects receive next year obviously depends on their performance in the competition. Knowing this, can those "discordant noises" shut up?

The results of modern sports require a lot of investment as a foundation. The rumors that "China's sports industry does not cost taxpayers a penny" and "national sports" are just speculations and lies of some egg people.

Yes, China has several extremely successful commercial sports, such as basketball, football, polo, and fighting. They do not particularly need funding from the Chinese Athletic Sports Committee, and strong sponsors are enough to handle everything. But don't forget that for these popular targets with advertisers, all countries are the same.

But China's strong comprehensive sports strength is not limited to the above few items. So how can China's sports industry not cost taxpayers a share of money?

The main income of Chinese sports does come from commercial sponsorship. Sponsors naturally flock to big stars and big leagues. But if you turn your attention to a small team in a small village, school, or factory, you will know that it is too difficult for them to get commercial sponsorship. For this reason, governments at all levels in China have come up with various ways to give these sponsoring companies a large number of corresponding policies and tax benefits. Personal donations to support sports can also be tax deductible and tax reduced, just like charity, encouraging corporate and individual donations in the form of disguised subsidies.

A considerable number of Chinese athletes do come from public universities, but since they are public schools, how can they not spend government money? Every year, China's public universities can receive a large amount of funding from national special funds and provincial and municipal governments. Isn't it the hard work of taxpayers? A large part of these funding is used to provide scholarships for specially recruited student athletes. These student athletes have a complete sports selection system from elementary school to university. There are corresponding school teams and leagues in each grade, and they are selected layer by layer in the trajectory of middle school-university-professional athletes. The China University Sports Association is an association jointly participated by thousands of universities and colleges in China. Its main activities are various sports leagues held every year, which is one of the most important events for Chinese college students after studying.

These student athletes have been learning sports since childhood. Of course, they cannot enter university based on their academic performance alone, but universities recruit them because of their sports expertise, not for them to come to class. The considerable amount of scholarships and excellent coaches can ensure that these people can train without worries while maintaining their student status. Most of these students are also studying majors such as sports psychology, sports economics and management. Even if their sports careers are unsuccessful or they retire, they can develop into coaches and sports agents.

In China, to what extent does the national financial allocation affect Chinese schools? There used to be more than one Chinese university that, due to financial difficulties, would rather cut some basic disciplines and departments in order to retain sports students. Therefore, in China, it is almost impossible to train a competitive athlete by relying on the personal strength of an ordinary family.

In today's competitive sports environment, it is completely a fantasy for ordinary people to hire a coach to train from a young age and then win a gold medal in a competitive competition. The competitive sports represented by the competition are even farther away from national sports. In today's rapidly developing science and technology, sports competitions themselves are a contest of comprehensive national strength. In fact, China's investment in sports is not so high as to be appalling. The world's major sports countries, such as Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, etc., have a higher proportion of investment in sports than in national fiscal expenditures!

This is the real national system, which uses the whole country's strength to do a good job in sports. The British sports system is relatively backward, but in essence, it is completely different from the irresponsible remarks of those egg people who are dissatisfied with the government, which are based on rumors and distort the truth.

In a sense, the gold medals of competitive competitions are piled up with money, and it is not shameful to concentrate on doing big things.

In fact, any country that succeeds in the medal list is the same, just in different forms. Moreover, as the motherland gradually becomes richer and stronger, the training model of athletes will tend to be diversified, and the UK will also have its own characteristics on the road of sports competition.

…

"Fuck, what kind of shitty article is this?" An official from a British government department looked at the manuscript in front of him and cursed fiercely, "Now is the competitive competition period, they are not asked to debate with the egg people, the river crab is the first priority." This kind of article with hostility must not be published publicly. Although the author's intention is to defend British sports, he has crossed the line.

"Send it back and ask him to revise it. All the unnecessary things have been removed. Just let the public know what Chinese sports are all about."

The official did not intend to make trouble. If it was like the last time when the "Chinese charity" was carried out with great fanfare, and the UK was finally under international pressure, and even the Minister of Culture and Sports announced his resignation, that was not what he wanted to see. It was not something that his small shoulders could bear...

Public opinion propaganda is a very difficult thing. After all, China's current advantages are too great. There are countless egg people in the UK who clamor that the moon in the east is rounder than the moon in the west, but if the official is allowed to make a choice, he is willing to immigrate to China if possible.