Owners of Mission Hills investing in football

The owner of Mission Hills in China, the world's biggest golf resort, is building a Barcelona-backed academy aimed at breeding a new generation of "national heroes".

Mission Hills, which owns two giant golf complexes in the south of China, hopes to house more than 1,000 children at its facility on Hainan island, which will also be a training centre for China's national team and top clubs.

President Xi Jinping said he wanted the world's most populous nation to become a global football power, and the investment is now following.

Barcelona is on board as a "strategic financial partner" and will provide coaching expertise at the new academy, Mission Hills vice-chairman Tenniel Chu told AFP.

Chu said the new academy, at its Haikou golf resort on Hainan will be able to tap an enormous new market following President Xi's decree.

"The grassroots level is very important in growing the game," he said in an interview at this week's LeSports Connects sports forum at Mission Hills in Guangdong.

"Our president Xi, as you know his dream is by 2020 to have 50 million full-time footballers... So we're looking at a huge market in promoting the juniors' development."

China's 83rd-ranked national team is now coached by Italy's Marcello Lippi, and will use the academy as a winter training base.

The academy already has five pitches and will grow to 30, he said. "With 30 pitches you can accommodate up to 1,000 students at any time," added Chu.

Children will also be able to attend Mission Hills' 5,000-capacity international school, another initiative on the sprawling, 10-golf-course Haikou site.

"Ultimately it's to breed our own (Lionel) Messis, or Neymars or Beckhams -- our national heroes," Chu said of the football academy.

Mission Hills was founded in 1992 and is run by Tenniel and his brother, Ken, after their late father bought a site covering more than 7.7 square miles between Dongguan and Shenzhen, close to Hong Kong.

Mission Hills has hosted five editions of golf's World Cup and the 2012 WGC-HSBC Champions, but now focuses on celebrity events featuring Hollywood stars rather than top-level tournaments.

Chu said he regularly rejects proposals for international tournaments, adding that Mission Hills gets "five or six times" more media attention for the celebrity events.

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