Eastern Chinese province pledges to make one football pitch available to every 10,000 by 2025

NANJING, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- The eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu aims to have one football pitch available to every 10,000 people by 2025, according to a provincial national fitness plan for 2021-2025.

During the period, Jiangsu will increase the per capita sports area to 3.6 square meters and guarantee that every 1,000 people will have access to 3.6 sports instructors. The per capita sports consumption of urban and rural residents is expected to reach 3,500 yuan (about 549 U.S. dollars), according to the plan.

In order to provide sufficient fitness venues for local residents, Jiangsu pledges to have over 1,400 sports parks and hiking trails totaling more than 16,000 kilometers during the five-year period. The proportion of residents who engage in regular physical exercise is expected to reach 43 percent.

Soccer field construction is one of the important measures in the plan. The province will add 200 football pitches, with one pitch available to every 10,000 people during the period.

In line with the plan, all public stadiums and gymnasiums that get free or low-cost government subsidies should meet the basic standards of information construction by 2023. More than half of the above public stadiums and gymnasiums must achieve the upgrading standards of information construction by 2025.