Cuju, ancient predecessor of soccer ready to be China's nonmaterial heritage

Cuju, the ancient form of modern soccer game has been anticipating a recognition as China's nonmaterial heritage, which would enable the endangered game under the national protection, local officials said Friday.
Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA acknowledged in 2004 that Cuju is the true origin of the sport. And Peter Velappan, General Secretary of the Asia Football Confederation declared in the same year that football originates from the Linzi district of China's Shandong Province.
According to historical records, Cuju was an very popular game in China's Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC - 476 BC) in Linzi, the capital of the Qi State (479 AD-502 AD) and one of the largest cities in the world at that time.
But officials with the Linzi government said that the game was hard to be revitalized as it had been losing popularity during the reign by minorities in Yuan (1279-1368) and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911), whose lifestyles were totally different from those of the game inventor, Han nationality. And some master-hands who knew how to play the game died without passing the skills on to next generations.
Earlier this year, the Chineses Ministry of Culture launched the program of nonmaterial heritage aiming at collecting and protecting some fork arts ever prosperous among the people from extinction, including drama, sports and distinct customs.
According to Linzi government, once the game were listed among the national nonmaterial heritages, they could get a fixed amount of fund every year from the Ministry of Culture to protect the game.
Linzi District said in the application that they planned to build a cuju school to train professional players and were ready to do further studies on the game's history and rules, which required the country's support for financial reasons.
Before the program, Linzi District had set up an office of soccer industry development under local government and formed China's first Cuju team, spending a total investment of over two million Yuan (about 250,000 US dollars) in order to revive the game.
Some historians even suggested that Cuju be China's fifth great invention, along with the compass, gunpowder, paper-making and printing, as the game was also exported to ancient Egypt, then Greece, Rome and the rest of the world.