The education department of the city of Harbin, Heilongjiang province announced, that it will be promoting football with qualified coaches to train young players, on March 30.

The new plan mainly focuses on primary and secondary school level and that it aims to set up a youth football league involving 150 schools by 2017.

Meanwhile there are short-term goals for each individual school, this year, that call for at least two football classes each week as part of their curriculum while the education department will provide help in promoting by hiring professionals.

Football in Chinese schools is actually not all that popular and many children do not aspire to be football stars, and to make matters worse, the education system is score-based so that students take extra classes after school, hence this new initiative, which is meant to tackle that matter.

The Ministry of Education has already cooperated with the Chinese Football Association in devising a plan to provide football training at 20,000 primary and secondary schools nationwide by 2017, up from the current 5,000.