Yu Zaiqing, Vice Chairman of the International Olympic Committee and the Organizing Committee for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, and Zhong Zhihua, Academician of China Academy of Engineering and President of Tongji University, unveiled the International Football Academy. Li, executive deputy director of the Inter-Ministerial Joint Conference Office of the State Council Football Reform and Development, vice chairman of China Football Association, Xue Yanqing, secretary general of the Joint Secretariat of the Student Sports Association of the Ministry of Education, and Liu, deputy director of the Department of Sports Health and Art Education of the Ministry of Education, delivered speeches respectively, and unveiled the "Tongji University Football Think Tank". Guo Bei, inspector of Shanghai Sports Bureau, Wu Jiang, executive vice president of Tongji University, and John Finlay-Jones, vice president of Adiscovan University jointly unveiled the Tongji -Adiscovan Football Science Research Center.
It is understood that Tongji University International Football College is positioned as an independent secondary college. The college will adhere to the development concept of "innovation, coordination, green, openness and enjoyment", adhere to the direction of international cooperation and market-oriented operation, and implement the management mode of president responsibility system under the leadership of the Council. Based on the forefront of football development in the world today and the reality of football development in China, football management, football economics, football training, football investigation and research, and football humanistic sociology have been formed.
Academician Zhong Zhihua, president of Tongji University, said that developing and revitalizing China football has become a national strategy. However, the serious shortage of excellent football professionals in China has become a bottleneck restricting the development of football in China. Tongji University, with the mission of cultivating professional elites and social pillars, positively responded to the call of the CPC Central Committee and decided to establish an international football academy, aiming at further relying on the leading and exemplary role of Shanghai's football education reform in the whole country, continuing to explore an international modern football education system in line with the national football development strategy in the new era, providing successful experience and reference for the cultivation of football elites and the innovative and sustainable development of China football, and actively helping to cultivate a positive football culture in the whole society and inject more vitality into Shanghai's construction of a global sports city.
The inaugural meeting of the International Football Academy was presided over by Jiang Fuming, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Tongji University. Also present at the unveiling ceremony were Mao, director of the Sino-German Humanities Exchange Research Center of Tongji University, vice president of Shanghai Institute of Physical Education, Yi Xianwen, deputy secretary of Chengda Party Committee, leaders of Tsinghua University, Peking University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Fudan University, South China University of Technology, and former head coach of China National Men's Football Team Zhu, former head coach of China National Women's Football Team and now assistant coach of China National Men's Football Team Li Tie. Famous football players Liu Qingquan, Yang Limin, Li Zhonghua, Chairman of Shanghai Zhong You Group and Wu Zhi, an alumnus of Tongji University, spoke as representatives of the partners, saying that they would provide all-round support for the construction and development of the International Football Academy.