Less than a month after Alipay announced that it will plow 1 billion RMB over the next decade to support women’s football in China, the third party mobile and online payment platform has launched another initiative called ‘Chasing the Wind’, which aims to provide funds over the next 5 years to 100 primary school football teams and girls’ football in less developed rural areas.

The online application and registration process has already started, with 70 primary school football teams from less developed rural areas having registered . The successful  teams will receive 300,000 RMB over three years, which will be used by these campus teams for team building.

Of the 300,000 RMB, 200,000 will be used to purchase football equipment , medical care and insurances, improve player development and set up friendly matches, with the remainder of the money being used for training, including inviting national level coaches  to create training videos, providing free training twice a year for primary school lcoaches, and a chance for teams to attend the annual “Chasing the Wind Primary School Football Championship”.

This is not the first time that Alipay has done something for youth football. Back in August, 2017, Alipay announced they would provide funding for Qiongzhong Girls’ Football, a middle school football team from Qiongzhong, Hainan. The experience of funding Qiongzhong Girls’ Football has proven to Alipay that football can really change the lives of young girls in less developed rural areas, especially in terms of gender equality in personal development opportunities with the result being that the kids have become more outgoing, confident, and better at teamwork.

Reference: sohu.com

Proofread by Raymond Fitzpatrick