Wang calls on nation to back new coach

China Daily, August 15, 2011

Chinese tycoon Wang Jianlin called on the nation to support newly-appointed Chinese national soccer coach Jose Antonio Camacho after the Spaniard signed a three-year contract with the Chinese Football Association (CFA) in Beijing on Sunday.

Camacho is interviewed upon his arrival at Beijing Capital International Airport, Beijing, Aug 13, 2011. [Photo/Xinhua]

"If you are a real Chinese, a real Chinese soccer fan, please support Camacho," said Wang, chairman of Chinese real estate company Dalian Wanda, which has promised to inject 500 million yuan ($77.3 million) over three years to boost Chinese soccer, including inviting a world-class coach to help the national program.

However, the 56-year-old businessman's determination to replace former coach Gao Hongbo has been criticized in some quarters as being unreasonable and meddling too much in the sport.

"Firstly, Camacho is the choice of the CFA, not Wanda," Wang said. "We recommended four candidates to the CFA, and it finally chose Camacho, we just paid the bill.

"Then I found some Chinese people fairly strange. When the coach is Chinese, they said a domestic coach was not capable of leading the team, but when a world-class name comes, they say a foreign coach is not better than the Chinese," he said.

Wang appears fully behind Camacho, who has had two coaching spells at Real Madrid and a four-year tenure with the Spanish national team.

"Camacho has been at the helm of six La Liga clubs, and it proved his capabilities," Wang said." As far as I know, he placed 26th in last year's world ranking of elite coaches, even though he hadn't worked for 1 years.

"There is no coach from Asia in the top 100, and if we put all the coaches around the world together, I think no Chinese would be among the top 500," he said.

Moreover, Wang said the ability of a coach shouldn't be evaluated by a game or one World Cup, but the change he can bring to a team, regarding skill, strategy and psychology, in three to five years .