China is "turning its attention" to soccer, and if the world's most populated country "can follow through on an ambitious plan pushed by President Xi Jinping, the nation could someday become a soccer superpower," according to Baxter & Kaiman of the L.A. TIMES. Xi in a "dramatic break with Chinese bureaucratic traditions" separated the country's ruling soccer federation "from the government-run sports ministry." At the grassroots level, Xi's 50-point State Council plan "calls for the expenditure of billions of dollars on developmental programs, including the creation of 50,000 soccer schools, over the next decade." The government also has "helped inspire a massive wave of investment in China's first-division soccer league." It is all "part of a coordinated effort to raise the level of play in a country that ranks 88th in the world." Xi's reforms are "designed to speed that transition, which would win China respectability in international soccer, perhaps paving the way for it to host the World Cup." China may have "taken a first step down that path in March when" Dalian Wanda Group "became the first Chinese company to sign on as a top-tier FIFA sponsor." China's professional Super League "has also been flexing its financial muscle." Five months ago the 16-team league spent a record $366M acquiring players during international soccer's winter transfer window, about what Europe's top three leagues "spent combined." China's second-tier League One -- the "equivalent of a minor league in baseball -- spent another" $110M (L.A. TIMES, 5/14).
