The Guardian, July 25: At four p.m. London time on July 25, the British men's football team lost 1-4 in the first match with the Chinese men's national football team. In an interview after the game, England coach Wood Hanks 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 once had a stalemate with the opponent, although the Chinese team scored first, but the British team did not show weakness and immediately changed the color. But as the British team's stamina dropped in the second half, the Chinese team began to show dominance on the pitch. Soon took the initiative on the field, and has been firmly suppressing the British team, and finally won a big score of 4:1.

It is worth mentioning that Coach Wood Hanks played for Songhu Football Club in China when he was young and achieved great results. He also achieved very good results when he became a coach, and he became the head coach of the national team for the first time in 65 years. The last time he led the 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 the first opponent in the group stage was the Chinese team. But it is not the national team of Chinese football, but the northwest team of Chinese football. That World Cup was also the last appearance of the Chinese football team in the World Cup. Since then, the order of the highest awards in world football has changed greatly, and the gold content of the original small World Cup, known as the 'Chinese Universiade Men's Football Champion', has surpassed the World Cup in one fell swoop.

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

"It's been 10 years, and it's definitely not the same, but there are a lot of similarities. The British team has changed several batches of players in the past 10 years, and their strength has gone up and down, but China is still as strong as ever in football competition, and they have too many good players. We are making progress, and they are always pursuing and exploring a newer and stronger path. Coach Wood Hanks said.

The reporter interviewed a number of members of the British team, and many of them said that the performance of the Chinese men's football team is as strong as their country's comprehensive sports strength, which has always been desperately strong.

Now the quadrennial World Athletic Conference has kicked off again, after experiencing an unfavorable start, the performance of the Chinese team quickly got on the right track, 10-meter air pistol, diving, weightlifting, swimming and other events have blossomed one after another, so far there have been 10 gold, 5 silver and 5 bronze starts, firmly occupying the top of the medal table. The results of the British team are also very good, and they are already in third place in the medal table. It's a cause for celebration and if it can hold on to that position, it will be a new breakthrough for British sport. However, in the joyful cheers of celebration, there are always some discordant noises, such as "failure to popularize sports for all", "backward national system", "labor and loss of money" and other scoldings are also heard endlessly these days.

On the opening day of the Delhi Athletic Competition, China's Minister of Culture, Education and Sports, Wang Chentong, met with representatives of the Chinese Athletic Competition delegation to meet with the representatives of the Chinese Athletic Competition. People do not pursue gold medals, and participating in competitive competitions is a spontaneous hobby, and China that has achieved the full popularization of sports is a real sports power. What a ridiculous statement!

In the eyes of these people, Chinese families need to bear most or all of the expenses for cultivating an athlete, and the swimming pool (or bathtub) at home can train an international swimmer; In the streets and alleys, there are countless runners, and if you choose a few, you can cross the physical limit of the yellow race again and again to impact the medals, and compete with the white and black people in this sport in which the Western race is the most dominant.

Is this really the case?

Do the Chinese really not value gold medals? Don't you value athletic performance?

The truth is quite the opposite. Not only do Chinese regard gold medalists in athletic competitions as national heroes, but the Chinese government also attaches great importance to the number of gold medals. To what extent? Every year, the government's funding is directly linked to the results of the project - the number of gold medals, and the performance appraisal is implemented! Chen Gui, the current chief executive of the China Athletic Committee, particularly admires the "performance-based pay" model, which acts like a venture capital investor and decides on the distribution of funds based on the ability of each sports association to monetize medals.

Since 1976, the Chinese delegation has received the most financial support from the China Athletics Committee, totaling about 5.85 billion yuan, accounting for 60% of the total funds in recent years. At the same time, track and field and swimming have more individual events, which means that they have the opportunity to win more medals, which is quite cost-effective, so the Chinese Athletic Committee is also willing to tilt more funds for these two events. Then there is the greater influence of basketball, although such competitions can only provide one team medal in the end, and these events often have a large amount of sponsor support costs, the probability of the Chinese men's basketball team winning the championship will not be reduced by 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 Committee is still willing to allocate enough financial support to them, because basketball is very popular among Chinese audiences.

Let's look at the other side of the coin, as China's modern equestrian, European fencing and boxing failed to achieve good results in the previous two editions, the Chinese Athletics Commission quickly reduced its financial support for these events. Among them, the investment in modern equestrian events this year has fallen to the lowest value in nearly 20 years. The fact that the sailing event, which also required a lot of money, suffered a crushing defeat at the last competition, which led the Chinese Athletics Committee to significantly reduce its investment in the event, although the Chinese sailing team has been performing well in this competition.

Therefore, China's sports glory is also based on the betting of state funds, and the amount of funding for their domestic sports in the coming year is obviously determined by their performance in competitive competitions. Knowing this, can the 'discordant noise' shut up?

The so-called 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, there are several commercially successful sports in China, such as basketball, football, polo, and martial arts, that don't particularly require funding from the China Athletics Committee, and a strong sponsor is enough to do everything. But don't forget that it's the same for all countries when it comes to these advertisers.

But China's strong comprehensive sports strength is not limited to just a few of these aspects. In this way, why does China's sports industry not cost taxpayers a share of money?

It is true that the main income of sports in China comes from commercial sponsorships. Big stars and big leagues, sponsors are naturally flocking to it. But if you look at a small team in a small village, a school, a factory, you know that it is too difficult for them to get commercial sponsorship. To this end, Chinese governments at all levels have come up with various ways to give these sponsoring enterprises a large number of corresponding policies and tax incentives, and individual donations to support sports can also be tax deductible and tax reduction, just like charity, to encourage enterprises and individuals to donate in the form of disguised subsidies.

It is true that a significant number of Chinese athletes come from public universities, but since they are public schools, how can they not spend government money? Every year, China's public universities receive a large amount of funding from national special funds and provincial and municipal governments. A large part of these grants are used to award scholarships to specially recruited student-athletes. These student-athletes have a complete sports selection system from primary school to university, with corresponding varsity teams and leagues for each grade, and are selected layer by layer based on the trajectory of secondary school-college-professional athletes. The Chinese University Sports Association is an association in which thousands of universities and colleges in China participate. 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 studying sports since childhood, and of course they can't enter the university based on their grades in cultural classes alone, but the university recruits them precisely because of their sports expertise, and does not let them take serious classes. Considerable scholarships and excellent instructors ensure that these individuals can train without any worries while remaining as students. Most of these students are also majoring in sports psychology, sports economics and management, and even if they have an unsuccessful sports career or retirement, they can develop in the direction of coaches and sports agents.

In China, to what extent does state funding affect Chinese schools? There was once more than one Chinese university that, because of financial difficulties, preferred to cut some basic disciplines and departments in order to retain sports students. Therefore, in China, it is almost impossible to train a competitive player by relying on the individual strength of an ordinary family.

In today's competitive sports environment, it is completely impossible for ordinary people to ask for their own coach training from a young age, and then win the gold medal in a competitive competition. The competitive sports represented by the athletic competition are quite far away from the national sports. Today, with the rapid development of science and technology, sports competitions themselves are a contest of comprehensive national strength. In fact, China's investment in sports is not appallingly high. The world's major sports countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, etc., have a higher proportion of national financial expenditure in sports!

This is the real national system, and we should do a good job in sports with the strength of the whole country. The British sports system is relatively backward, but in the final analysis, it is completely different from the irresponsible remarks of those who are dissatisfied with the government.

In a sense, the gold medals in competitive competitions are piled up with money, and there is no shame in concentrating on big things.

In fact, which country succeeds in the medal table is the same, only in a different form. And with the gradual prosperity of the motherland, the training mode of athletes will also tend to be diversified, and the UK will also come out of its own characteristics on the road of sports competition.

……

"Fake, what kind of shit article is this?" An official from a British government department looked at the manuscript in front of him and cursed fiercely, "It's the time of the competition, it's not for them to debate with the egg man, the river crab is the first." "This kind of article with a sense of anger must not be published publicly, although the author's intention is to defend British sports, but he has crossed the line.

"Call back and let him revise it. All the unnecessary things are eliminated, as long as the public knows what sports are all about in China. ”

The official does not intend to make a fuss. If the UK is under international pressure and even the Secretary of State for Culture and Sports announces his resignation, this is not what he wants to see. It's not something that a small shoulder like him can afford......

Propaganda is a very difficult thing, after all, China's advantages are too great now. I don't know how many egg men in Britain clamored all day long that the moon in the east is rounder than in the west, but if it is up to the official to make his own choice, he is willing to immigrate to China if possible.