Feature: A Chinese footballer's new goal: helping children

Professional football players often become coaches or agents when their playing days are at an end, but for Gao Leilei, it was always going to be philanthropy.

Born in 1980, Gao started playing football at the age of five. Unlike many other Chinese athletes, he did not go to professional sports school, but was educated in a public middle school affiliated to Beijing's Renmin University.

In 1998, aged 17, he was scouted by Wuhan Yaqi football club and rose to the top professional league before returning to Beijing to play for Guo'an. He scored a famous equalizer for Guo'an against Liaoning in the last round of what was then A Division. He ventured abroad in 2007 to play for Mypa in Finland, before playing for teams in New Zealand and the United States. In 2010, he retired from the professional game.

Gao never made the national team, and in 2007 he became involved in charity work with rural children. He says he inherited his charitable ideals from his father, a college professor who sold his bicycle and watch to help poor students.

"My experience in foreign countries also inspired me," he says, recalling how Western players commonly did charity work. "Chinese football players have let the people down with their poor performances and scandals. I want to change the negative image."

FIELD OF CHINESE DREAMS

He started by building rural primary schools and buying school buses in southwest China's Sichuan Province, but he gradually realized that teachers were more important than facilities. "I couldn't change the situation and bring more teachers in, so I thought 'Why not do something related to my profession?' If children have a place to play football, I could give them all round support, from training to uniforms."

Since then Gao has busied himself by building football pitches in primary schools. He pays for all materials - cement, sand and astroturf - from his own savings.

"I don't do any fund raising," he says. "All the expenses are paid by me."

Even buying raw materials directly from the wholesalers, one pitch still costs him 500,000 yuan (about 80,000 U.S. Dollars). The pitches are all the same quality whether in Sichuan, southwest China's Yunnan Province, or Beijing.

"I don't think children in remote rural areas should have poor quality sports facilities," he says.

He does not choose locations randomly. The schools must have sports teachers who can guarantee long-term use.

Gao runs a sushi restaurant in downtown Beijing and some of the profits go to his charity work. So far, he has built six pitches in Beijing, Sichuan, Yunnan and in Myanmar, where more than 5,000 children in refugee camps have benefited.

In the holidays, Gao takes children abroad to watch games in the Premier League in England and Bundesliga in Germany.

HAPPINESS IS THE GOAL

The national squad's poor performance in the field does not prevent football from having a big fan in China. In March, President Xi Jinping declared his intention to improve the country's image and status on the world footballing stage, and young football talent is a key point of the plan.

The number of schools specializing in soccer will rise from the current figure of around 5,000 to around 20,000 by 2020, and to 50,000 by 2025.

"Students learn respect, discipline, teamwork and confidence," Gao says. "They understand what the concepts really mean when they play football."

Gao does not just have a free run on goal. Unbelievably, in December 2014, after buying raw materials and equipment and putting together a construction team to build a pitch in Baishawan in Yunnan Province, the local government stopped the project for an "audit" .

"It was just an excuse," he says. "The school actually had the autonomy to decide whether to build a sports field, but someone was aiming to make money from the contract. Realizing the negotiations were in vain, I gave up and simply chose another school."

As father of a 2-year-old boy, Gao has, almost unbelievably, faced criticism from his own family. Some argue the money should be saved rather than given away. "I told them that charity is just helping others. It's natural and a civic responsibility. If one day I cannot afford to build football pitches for the children anymore, I will do something else to contribute to society."

His views on charity have changed over the years. At first, Gao made donations to almost every remote village he visited in Yunnan. "I needed help from my friends to pay my fare home again," he recalls.

He came to understand that children need support as much as money, so he visits the children in Beijing four times a week and those in Sichuan and Yunnan eight times each year.

Individual charity is different from governmental or non-governmental organizations, Gao says. "It's not about how many children you help or how much money you put into it. It's not about figures. What matter most to me is whether those children receive my help and whether they are happy in their lives and in sport." Endi