China turns to science to help fix troubled soccer team

Government organisations are funding research to help football teams raise their game in a sport that has been mired in corruption and failure on the mainland.

At least three research teams are working on a computer system that can analyse videos of matches and highlight teams' strengths and weaknesses.

China's national team failed to quality for the World Cup in Brazil this summer and has only taken part in the tournament once in 2002. Several top soccer officials, including two former heads of the mainland's soccer leagues, have been jailed for accepting bribes and match-fixing.

Among the organisations funding the video research are the Chinese Academy of Sciences and National Natural Science Foundation. Researchers working on the project include teams at Xian Jiaotong University and Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Funding for soccer game analysis has increased rapidly over the past few years due to the government's eagerness to revive the national game, according to Qian Xueming, a video content analyst at Xian Jiaotong University's school of electronic and information engineering.

Qian said there was similar research overseas, which required setting up more than a dozen special cameras around the pitch to capture every movement of the players and the ball. The research on the mainland was more ambitious as researchers want to get all the necessary data and information from ordinary television broadcasts.

"This is quite challenging, but if the project succeeds almost any video recordings of a match can be analysed by the computer and provide some helpful insights," he said. "With sufficient government investment, I am quite sure about its success."