Chris Edwards

    2045038940@qq.com

    WITH the recent announcements that China will be hosting Hong Kong at Bao’an Stadium in Shenzhen (Sept. 3), Bhutan at Helong Stadium in Changsha (Nov. 12), the Maldives at Wuhan Sports Center Stadium in Wuhan (March 24, 2016) and Qatar at Shaanxi Province Stadium in Xi’an (March 29, 2016), Chinese soccer fans are getting excited about these international events.

    Having said that, the thought of South China hosting a major soccer tournament crossed my mind. When the People’s Republic of China hosted the 2004 AFC Asian Cup, it was held in just four stadiums, spread from Beijing to Chongqing. I believe that a far more effective plan would be to hold the AFC Asian Cup in a region that would minimize long flights or road trips — which is why I believe that South China would be ideal for such a tournament.

    South China has a number of stadiums that would only need the construction of VIP facilities and other minor improvements to bring them up to FIFA and AFC standards.

    Using the United Arab Emirates model of requiring six stadiums, I came up with seven stadiums in South China that are either currently being used or have recently been used as soccer stadiums and included their seating capacity:

    *Guangdong Olympic Stadium (80,000)

    *Shenzhen Universiade Sports Center (60,334)

    *Tianhe Stadium in Guangzhou (58,500)

    *Helong Stadium in Changsha (55,000)

    *Guiyang Olympic Sports Center (52,500)

    *Bao’an Stadium (40,000)

    *Century Lotus Stadium in Foshan (36,686)

    In addition, China has plenty of hotels to house the millions of fans that would flood into the country through the numerous airports around the area. The public transport links to and from the stadiums would need to be improved in some cases, but this could easily be handled by increasing capacity on the existing or under-construction metro lines in China right now. In addition, the high-speed rail network could be utilized to effectively transport fans across the country to other games.

    There are plenty of VIP hospitality facilities in every city; although it is most likely that Guangzhou would be the host city for this hypothetical AFC Asian Cup. The work that is being done by provincial governments across China shows their commitment toward environmental and sustainability initiatives — this would satisfy many of those that decide these matters. In addition, investments by the owners of the Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao F.C. in their academies (among other clubs) show that the private sector is willing to invest in such a project as well.

    There are also thousands of universities and training facilities that could be selected as team base camps. I am sure that many universities would work hard to prepare themselves for the traveling teams, regardless of how extravagant the demands of some teams would be.

    When it comes to setting up fan parks, China is a country blessed with plenty of open spaces for fans to mingle and watch games on giant screens for the duration of the tournament. The people of China are big fans of the sport, as shown by the passionate and rabid support of club teams both at home and abroad, so there would definitely be public support for such a bid.

    Would I support a bid for China to host the AFC Asian Cup? Absolutely! I see no reason why the hotbed of soccer fans in China would not support the millions of fans who would travel from all over Asia and the world to attend this event.

    So I nominate South China to host of the 2023 AFC Asian Cup — do you?

    (The author is an Australian English teacher in Bao’an District.)