Head Technical Advisor for the Chinese FA, Tom Byer will speak at the Soccerex Global Convention, 26-28 September, Manchester. Tom will be giving a presentation regarding his groundbreaking technical development initiatives for youth development and how they are being implemented in China.

A key part of how Tom developed his principles for technical development was based on the work he did with his own children. Tom encourages children to get to grips with a football from the earliest age possible. He believes in empowering kids, and that’s exactly what he has done over his multiple years in coaching.

As one of the most highly regarded grassroots soccer coaches in the whole of Asia, Byer has dedicated his adult life to giving children the opportunity to play football in the overall vision that the Chinese football market will surely benefit from it in the future.  In the past, Tom has been cited as a major development influence by Asian soccer stars such as Borussia Dortmund midfielder Shinji Kagawa and Japanese Women’s captain Aya Miyama.

Tom has since become a key figure in the re-development of youth football in China, with his main target being to change the attitude to youth football and grassroots in particular. Tom helped launch the China School’s football project, with the aim being to give every child in China a chance to get familiarised with the game of football. He aims to develop young talent in China that will eventually ensure the Chinese Super League decreases the need for spending power, with more young talent coming through the ranks.

With the rapid rise of the Chinese Super League in terms of financial power, the worry for Chinese football in the long term is how they can build a suitable platform for the Chinese game to develop without continuing to tempt elite European club players with large wage packages.  As well as the target of building a sustainable Chinese League, the development initiatives also seek to create more young for the national side. With China sitting at 81st in the FIFA World Rankings, the need for change at grassroots is imperative. For a country that boasts the biggest population on the globe, its football ranking does not reflect this. Change is needed from grassroots level in order to nurture the young talent and develop the stars of tomorrow into international players. Tom is at the forefront of this mission, and hopes to make a difference in the development of the Chinese youth.

Tom will be contributing to the thought provoking conference program at the Soccerex Global Convention 2016, designed to deliver unique business insight across a variety of key sectors and subject matters ranging from sponsorship and fan engagement to the technological innovations and stadium development.

(Soccerex Press Release)