【中文标题】中国准备好主办世界杯了吗 － 在16年之后？
【原文标题】Is China Ready to Host the World Cup — in 16 Years?
【登载媒体】时代周刊
【原文作者】Justin Bergman
【原文链接】http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2008309,00.html
2010年4月7日，北京，中国足协秘书长韦迪。
也许是因为呜呜祖拉的催眠效果，或者是西班牙令人激动的第一次夺冠，中国足协的新领导韦迪显然在南非世界杯上有了大彻大悟的感觉。体育盛事让南非更加团结，而且似乎让这个国家的足球队踢得更好。对此印象深刻的韦决定，如果中国无法凭自身实力进军世界杯，那么它至少要主办一次世界杯。韦在上个月回到中国，接受《北京青年报》采访时说：“围绕中国是否应当主办世界杯，以及在什么时候主办的问题，有很多争论。在南非成功地主办了这届锦标赛之后，我必须承认，中国没有理由不主办世界杯，时间就是现在。”
或者，准确点说是2026年。中国已经错过了申办2018年和2022年世界杯的机会——这两届锦标赛的主办国将在12月份揭晓——那么它有可能主办的最早比赛也是在16年之后了。尽管现在讨论如此遥远的一届世界杯有些为时过早，但是韦的言论有可能对2018年和2022年世界杯主办国的甄选过程产生重要的影响。国际足联喜欢每四年由不同的大洲主办比赛，巴西将在2014年作为下一届世界杯的主办国，国际足联就希望把2018年的比赛交给欧洲（英格兰和西葡是热门候选者），把2022年的比赛交给亚洲（日本、韩国、卡塔尔和澳大利亚都在努力）。但是，如果中国真把2026年世界杯作为自己的目标，国际足联或许会决定在2022年跳过亚洲，把世界杯直接交给北美洲唯一的申办者——美国。
有一点是相当确定的：如果中国宣布加入竞争者的行列，把最大一块尚未开发的足球市场呈现出来，世界杯的运作方和主办国的决定者国际足联很可能会乐得翻跟头。韦在上个月接受《体坛周报》——中国最大的体育类报纸——的采访时谈到，国际足联主席布拉特对他说，中国在世界上不断上升的影响力意味着中国举办世界杯是“不可抗拒的趋势”。（尽管布拉特曾经鼓励中国参与申办，但是他也曾经强力支持卡塔尔主办2022年世界杯。他在4月份说：“阿拉伯世界应当主办一次世界杯。”）另一个迹象也表明中国这次是认真对待此事，韦的一次谈话似乎有意去影响2022年世界杯的主办方，他公开支持美国，并且用不道德的方式抨击卡塔尔。他对《体坛周报》说：“卡塔尔太热了。那个国家有多少人口？他们怎么填满体育场中的座位？”
韦或许没有找到任何让中国等待更长时间再申办的原因，但是很多足球分析人士看到了这些原因。中国成功主办一届全球体育盛会的资源和意愿是不容质疑的，这个国家也证明了自身的体育强势力量，他们在2008年北京奥运会上获得了51枚金牌，居所有国家之首。但是，这些金牌主要来自乒乓球、羽毛球、体操和跳水等运动。中国之所以能主导这些领域，主要拜托严苛的举国体制——把很小的孩子从家乡带走，训练他们成为未来的冠军。
与此相反，中国足球队是一个永恒的遗憾。这支队伍目前在国际足联的排名中位于第78位，低于黑山和贝宁这样不起眼的小国，这些国家的人口数量总和也不超过北京市的人口。中国只有一次跻身世界杯决赛圈，在2002年，他们输掉了所有比赛，一球未进。更为尴尬的是，中国的三个邻居日本、韩国、甚至贫穷的朝鲜都参加了今年南非世界杯，而中国在与伊拉克和卡塔尔的资格赛中落败。尽管世界杯的主办国不一定是足球强国，南非就是一个例子，但是有些专家认为，如果中国队在本土举办的世界杯上仍然表现不好，将会是极为尴尬的，而且会让整个国家的足球水平倒退。这个观点得到了中国网民的支持。在163.com体育频道——这个国家最大的体育网站——组织的一次调查中，51％的中国人反对申办2026年世界杯，他们担心中国队的水平还不足以承办这样的比赛。
分析人士认为，政府应当把精力集中在改善中国足球的可悲现状上，培养更有才华的足球运动员和教练，在国内联赛中消除腐败，而不是在申办世界杯上浪费时间，这似乎只是为了炫耀排场和发掘商业市场。体坛传媒是《体坛周报》的发行方，副总裁颜强曾经在欧洲从事过足球记者的工作。他说：“现实情况是足球在中国微不足道。在美国，数百万的16岁以下儿童每周都在参加足球比赛。但是在中国，情况日趋恶化。（政府）总是在说：‘我们为什么不能把足球搞上去？我们是世界上人口数量最大的国家。’但是这与人口数量无关，重点在于你的足球运动参与人群有多大。在中国，这个数字非常非常小。”
原因是多方面的，从中国迅速发展的城市中缺少运动场地和比赛设备，到玷污了国内联赛名声的非法**行为。但是韦相信自己可以在2026年前解决这些问题。今年早些时候，他提出了一系列措施来提升这项运动，包括每年派遣100名10来岁的球员去欧洲训练。Rowan Simons是一名英国人，2001年他在北京开办了一家业余足球俱乐部，现在有100支成年队伍和2000名儿童在这里训练。他认为这个举措脱离了重点。与颜的见解相同，他认为中国要想发展足球运动，那么足球必须要通过社区俱乐部或者学校组织，在草根阶层广泛普及。Simons说：“在极少数量的孩子身上进行巨额投入，不会鼓励全国成千上万的孩子参与这项运动。领导层必须确保尽量多的孩子尽量长时间地从事足球运动，才会有天才显现出来。”
Simons支持中国申办世界杯——但不是现在，他希望先看到中国与这项运动用正确的方式彼此结合。他说：“我们的目的是让成千上万的人在足球中有所享受，而不是赢得世界杯。”
原文：
Maybe it was the hypnotic hum of the vuvuzelas, or Spain's inspiring first-time victory. Whatever the cause, Wei Di, the new head of the Chinese Football Association, apparently had an epiphany at the recent World Cup in South Africa. Impressed by how the event had united South Africa and seemed to make the country's soccer team play better, Wei decided that if China can't qualify for the World Cup on its own merits, it should at least host the tournament. "There have been many debates on whether China should host a World Cup or when to host it," Wei told the Beijing Youth Daily upon returning to China last month. "After the tournament succeeded in South Africa, I have to admit, China has no reason not to have a World Cup. And now is the time."
Or, more accurately, 2026 is the time. China has missed the boat on bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups — the hosts for both tournaments will be selected in December — so the soonest it could hope to host would be 16 years from now. But while it might seem premature to discuss a World Cup so far away, Wei's comments could have a major impact on the selection process for 2018 and 2022. FIFA likes to rotate the hosting duties by continent every four years. Because Brazil is hosting the next tournament in 2014, FIFA has been expected to give the 2018 World Cup to Europe (England and a joint Spain-Portugal bid are the favorites) and the 2022 tournament to Asia (Japan, South Korea, Qatar and Australia are in the running). But if China is seriously eyeing a 2026 bid, FIFA may decide to skip Asia in 2022 and give that World Cup to the only North American bidder — the U.S.
One thing is fairly certain: FIFA, the organization that runs the World Cup and decides the hosts, would likely do backflips if China tossed its hat in the ring, opening up the largest untapped soccer market in the world. Wei said as much in another interview last month with Titan Sports, the country's leading sports newspaper, noting that FIFA president Sepp Blatter told him that China's rising influence in the world means there's an "irresistible trend" toward China hosting the event. (Although Blatter has encouraged a China bid in the past, he's also been forceful in his support of Qatar's 2022 bid, saying in April, "The Arab world deserves to host the World Cup.") In another sign of how serious China is about hosting, Wei has also made statements that appear aimed at influencing the 2022 decision, openly backing the U.S. bid and taking unsportsmanlike potshots at Qatar. "Qatar is so hot," he told Titan Sports. "What's the population of that country? How can they fill their venues with people?"
Wei may not see any reason for China to wait a bit longer to host, but plenty of soccer analysts do. That China has the resources and willpower to put on a successful global sporting event is not in doubt. The country has also proven itself as a sporting superpower, winning 51 gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics — more than any other nation. But those golds came in sports such as table tennis, badminton, gymnastics and diving, which the Chinese dominate thanks to a rigorous state-sponsored system that plucks children from their homes at a young age and trains them to become future champions.
China's soccer team, by contrast, is a perennial disappointment. The squad currently sits at a dismal No. 78 in the FIFA world rankings, below such minnows as Montenegro and Benin, which have fewer citizens combined than the city of Beijing. China has only qualified once for the World Cup — in 2002 — and lost all of its opening-round games without scoring a goal. Most galling, however, is the fact that three of China's neighbors — Japan, South Korea and even destitute North Korea — made it to South Africa this year, while China fell in qualifying matches to Iraq and Qatar. Although a country doesn't have to be a soccer superpower to host — South Africa is a good example of that — some experts believe that if the Chinese team performs poorly on home soil, it could be embarrassing to the country and set soccer back even further. Chinese Netizens agree. According to a recent survey conducted by sports.163.com, one of China's biggest sports websites, 51% opposed a Chinese bid in 2026, fearing the team wouldn't be up to par.
Analysts say the government should focus its energies on improving the sorry state of soccer in China — cultivating more-talented players and coaches, ridding corruption from the domestic league — rather than wasting its time on a World Cup bid that matters only in terms of prestige and marketing potential. "The bottom line is football is nothing in China," says Yan Qiang, vice president of Titan Media, which publishes Titan Sports, and a former soccer reporter in Europe. "In the U.S., there are millions of kids under 16 playing weekly football games, but in China, the situation is getting worse and worse ... [The government] is always arguing, 'Why can't we make things happen in China? we're the most populous nation in the world.' But it has nothing to do with population. The only thing that matters is how big your football-playing population is, and in China, that figure is very, very low."
The reasons for this are many, from the lack of space for pitches in China's rapidly developing cities to the match-fixing and illegal betting in the domestic league that has sullied the sport's reputation. But Wei believes he can fix the problem in time for 2026. Earlier this year, he unveiled a host of measures aimed at boosting the sport, including sending 100 teenage soccer players to Europe each year for training. For Rowan Simons, a Briton who started an amateur soccer club in Beijing in 2001 that now has 100 adult teams and 2,000 kids in training programs, this tactic misses the point. Like Yan, he believes that for China to develop as a soccer power, the sport needs to spread across the country at the grass-roots level, through community-organized clubs or school programs. "This is a huge investment in a small number of children, money that doesn't go to encouraging thousands of kids to keep playing the game around the country," says Simons. "The leadership must keep as many kids playing for as long as possible to have the talent emerge."
Simons is a supporter of a Chinese World Cup bid — just not right away. He wants to see China fall in love with the game for the right reasons first. "The objective is to have millions of people enjoying themselves, not to win the World Cup," he says. |
狗仔卡
楼主
提升卡
变色卡
抢沙发
千斤顶
显身卡
发表于 2010-8-10 13:20
发表于 2010-8-13 00:23
