Introduction

Recognized as the world’s most global sport, football is increasingly regarded by Chinese policymakers as a critical component of the nation’s broader “comprehensive revitalization” strategy (Gündoğan and Sonntag, 2018). However, the Chinese men’s national football team has consistently underperformed, having qualified for the FIFA World Cup finals only once, in 2002 (Gündoğan, 2024). Over the past 30 years, the team’s average FIFA world ranking has been approximately 80th, and its current ranking stands at 94th (Fédération Internationale de Football Association, 2025). The insufficient pool of reserve talent has been identified as a significant constraint on the development of Chinese football (Watanabe, 2012; Xia et al., 2025). In 2009, China had only 7000 officially registered football players (Jiang et al., 2019). Although this figure has since risen to 501,517, it remains far below the levels observed in established football nations (Chinese Football Association, 2024).

China is striving to address this situation through strategic policy interventions (Yin et al., 2024). In 2009, the Ministry of Education(MOE) and the General Administration of Sport of China(GASC) jointly issued the Notice on Launching National Youth Campus Football Activities, proposing the nationwide promotion of campus football across primary, secondary, and tertiary education, and initiating a four-tier league system spanning primary schools, junior highs, senior highs, and universities. The aim was to popularize football knowledge and skills through educational institutions and to cultivate a pipeline of young football talent (General Administration of Sport of China, 2009). In 2015, to accelerate the building of China as a football powerhouse and further its broader national rejuvenation agenda, the 10th meeting of the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms reviewed and approved the Overall Program of Chinese Football Reform and Development (Chinese State Council, 2015). The plan elevated campus football development to the status of a national strategy, affording it unprecedented institutional prioritization and resource backing (Peng et al., 2019).

Currently, a wide array of campus football policies has been introduced, reflecting the maturation of youth campus football in China (Yang and Tang, 2017). However, this accumulation has resulted in a so‑called “policy jungle”, bringing about systemic inefficiencies and overlapping mandates within the campus football policy architecture (Pan and Wang, 2019). For instance, multiple policy‑making bodies vie for dominance, rather than coordinating complementary roles (Peng et al., 2024). For example, both the MOE and the GASC frequently organize parallel youth football tournaments at the same competitive tier, which forces schools to choose between overlapping events (Li et al., 2022; Qiu et al., 2023). Furthermore, some schools often “tick the box” merely to satisfy superior directives, while substantive efforts to promote campus football remain insufficient (Qiu et al., 2024). Moreover, China’s exam‑oriented educational framework, coupled with institutional priorities on school safety, has severely constrained the execution of campus football policies (Zhang, 2020). Therefore, it is evident that China’s campus football policy framework requires systematic optimization to resolve these structural and implementation challenges. Against this backdrop, this study examines the evolutionary dynamics of China’s campus football policies between 2009 and 2025. It addresses three core research questions: (1) How to categorize the Developmental Stages of China’s Campus Football Policies, (2) How have policy tools, actors, and thematic orientations evolved across different stages of China’s campus football policy? (3) What challenges emerge from the analysis of evolutionary dynamics, and what insights can these challenges offer for the future optimization of the policy framework? By addressing these questions, this study aims to propose optimization strategies for advancing the implementation of China’s campus football policies and to contribute to the enrichment of theoretical perspectives on policy evolution within the domain of sports governance.

Literature review

In the West, grassroots/community football clubs play a dominant role in youth football development, whereas school football—despite being a key component of physical education—has received comparatively little scholarly attention (Peng et al., 2023). Although a limited number of studies have traced the historical evolution of school football across various countries and its contributions to the development of professional football, little attention has been given to the policy frameworks underpinning these initiatives (Naglo, 2020; Taylor, 2025; Valiente, 2025; Impiglia, 2025; Koller, 2025; Naglo, 2025). As a result, the study of school football policy remains a neglected area within the broader field of sport policy research (O’Gorman, 2018).

In China, some studies have attempted to examine and address the challenges inherent in China’s campus football policy system from the perspectives of interest conflicts, social governance, and intergovernmental relations(Qiu, 2015; Dai and Jin, 2018; Zhang and Zhang, 2018; Qiu et al., 2021). Some studies have applied content analysis, quantitative approaches, and text-mining techniques to construct two- and even three-dimensional analytical frameworks grounded in policy tool theory—for example, the “tool–football reform and development strategy,” “tool–campus football value,” and “tool–element-level” models. However, most existing studies’ thematic dimension of policy content has largely been overlooked(Shi et al., 2016; Zheng and Zheng, 2016; Wang et al., 2020). As the old Chinese saying goes, “Laws alone are not enough to govern,” emphasizing that policy effectiveness relies on support from the policy system (Xu and Xu, 2025). Moreover, during policy implementation, the transformation of policy texts into practical outcomes depends on the identification of specific thematic pathways. This process is frequently shaped by the interaction between policy actors and policy tools (Hu and Luo, 2024).

Taken together, prior research has offered valuable insights, though it is somewhat limited by insufficient attention to thematic dynamics and a relatively underdeveloped theoretical foundation. This study seeks to address these gaps by situating the evolution of China’s campus football policy within established policy theories and by developing a three-dimensional analytical framework.

Theoretical framework

This study draws on three complementary theoretical perspectives: policy tool theory, governance theory, and policy process theory. Collectively, these perspectives offer a three-dimensional lens to examine the evolutionary dynamics of campus football policy in China.

Policy tool theory offers a systematic framework for classifying the mechanisms through which governments pursue policy objectives. The design, selection, and adjustment of policy tools embody distinct models of state intervention, reflecting the underlying logics of governance and policy priorities (Hood, 1983; Woodside, 1986; Howlett, 2005). In the context of campus football, analyzing the combinations of policy tools across different stages illuminates the evolution of state governance strategies in campus football. It highlights the adjustments made in response to structural challenges.

Governance theory emphasizes the pluralization of policy actors and the growing reliance on networks, partnerships, and collaborative arrangements in policy implementation. It highlights how diverse stakeholders, including central and local governments, football associations, and related organizations, interact to shape policy outcomes (Sørensen and Torfing, 2007; Ansell and Gash, 2008; Provan and Kenis, 2008). From this perspective, the evolution of campus football policy is not merely the result of top-down state directives but rather a process of negotiated governance, in which effectiveness hinges on the coordination and complementarity among multiple actors. Governance theory thus provides a theoretical foundation for understanding both the synergies and the fragmentation within China’s campus football policy system.

Policy process theory provides a framework for understanding the evolution of policy themes over time. It emphasizes how problems, solutions, and political contexts converge to shape agenda-setting, policy prioritization, and the sequencing of policy initiatives (Hall, 1993; Sabatier and Weible, 2014). In the context of campus football, policy themes such as talent, competition system, and cultural development emerge, gain prominence, and evolve across different policy stages. Analyzing these thematic evolution dynamics allows us to capture how policy objectives are articulated and operationalized, and how they interact with tools and actors to influence policy outcomes.

Grounded in policy tool theory, governance theory, and policy process theory, this study develops a three-dimensional policy analysis framework of “tools-actors-themes,” operationalized through content analysis, social network analysis (SNA), and the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic model. By doing so, it seeks to supplement the limited body of research on school football policy and to extend existing discussions within the broader field of sport policy analysis. Although tailored to China’s campus football context, the proposed framework could also offer insights for examining policy evolution in other areas of youth sport development.

Methods

Text selection

The policy documents for this study were collected from official sources, including the Ministry of Education’s website and authoritative legal and policy platforms such as the Peking University Law Database. Given the large number of policy texts related to campus football, three screening criteria were applied: (1) issued by authoritative institutions such as the Ministry of Education and the General Administration of Sport; (2) representative of China’s campus football policies; and (3) containing substantive content suitable for policy coding. Based on these criteria, 71 valid policy documents were selected as the data foundation for this study’s analysis of campus football policies (Bowen, 2009; Qin et al., 2020) (See Table 1).

Table 1 List of campus football policy documents (Partial).
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Three-dimensional analysis framework

This study proposes a three-dimensional analytical framework encompassing policy tools, policy actors, and policy themes to comprehensively examine the evolutionary characteristics of China’s campus football policy (see Fig. 1). It employs content analysis, SNA, and the LDA2Vec topic modeling technique to quantitatively analyze these dimensions, with the results subsequently visualized using curve charts, river diagrams, Gephi software, and the pyLDAvis visualization toolkit.

Fig. 1
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The three-dimensional analysis framework.

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X dimension: policy tools

Drawing on policy tools theory, this study adopts the tripartite classification of policy tools proposed by Rothwell and Zegveld and incorporates findings from existing Chinese research, categorizing policy tools into supply-oriented, environmental, and demand-oriented types (Rothwell, 1985). The details are as follows (See Table 2). In addition, given the large volume of policy documents involved in this study, the analysis of extensive textual content renders traditional analytical methods insufficient (Liu et al., 2024). However, content analysis is a systematic, objective, and quantitative method for describing text content, and it is widely used in policy text analysis (Downe-Wamboldt, 1992). This approach relies on clearly defined coding rules to reduce large volumes of textual information into smaller, more meaningful content categories (Weber, 1990). It enables a more accurate and comprehensive interpretation of textual data (Wei and Li, 2024).

Table 2 Classification and definition of campus football policy tools.
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This study employed two independent coders to perform content coding using NVivo 14.0 software. The selected policy documents were coded and categorized using a hierarchical structure denoted as “policy number–clause number–policy tool sequence number” (e.g., “7-1-7” indicates the seventh policy tool in the first clause of policy document number 7). After node coding was completed, the two datasets were imported into the NVivo system, and the built-in Kappa coefficient function was used to calculate intercoder reliability. A Kappa value above 0.81 indicates an optimal level of consistency between coders (Song et al., 2021). After multiple tests, all Kappa coefficients across the nodes were found to exceed 0.81. Finally, any coding discrepancies were resolved through expert consultation to determine the appropriate classification, thereby finalizing the coding table for the content analysis of campus football policy documents (See Table 3).

Table 3 Table of campus football policy text coding (Partial).
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Y dimension: policy actors

Grounded in governance theory, this dimension examines the interactions and influences of policy actors in the implementation of campus football policies. Policy actor refers to an entity involved in the formulation, implementation, evaluation, and monitoring of policies. It is responsible for designing policy themes, selecting appropriate policy tools, and coordinating the resources and actions of various stakeholders to achieve the intended policy objectives (Wang and Minawar, 2024). Accordingly, in the context of campus football, central government agencies, football associations, and related organizations are identified as policy actors. This study employs statistical bubble charts to visualize the frequency of policy actors’ involvement in campus football policy documents. Furthermore, by integrating SNA with Gephi visualization, the study constructs a policy actor network. Mapping nodes (e.g., organizations such as GASC and CFA) and edges (e.g., relationships or interactions) reveals interaction patterns, thereby enabling the assessment of coordination levels among policy actors in campus football governance(Otte and Rousseau, 2002; Springer and De Steiguer, 2011).

Z dimension: policy themes

This dimension, underpinned by policy process theory, analyzes the thematic evolution of campus football policies. As core elements of the policy system, policy themes reflect the problems addressed and objectives pursued by policies. Their dynamic adjustments across different stages of campus football development further reveal shifts in policy priorities and goal orientations (Hua et al., 2022). To capture these evolutionary trajectories, this study employs the LDA2vec thematic model—an extension of the LDA model. While traditional LDA (a three-layer Bayesian probabilistic network comprising vocabulary, themes, and documents) demonstrates efficiency and scalability in identifying policy themes (Blei et al., 2003; Chauhan and Shah, 2021; Alkan et al., 2023), its reliance on one-hot encoding overlooks semantic relationships. LDA2vec enhances clustering accuracy and thematic identification by integrating Word2Vec technology to optimize word, topic, and document vector representations (Li et al., 2018). This study combines LDA2vec with the confusion coefficient and the pyLDAvis visualization tool to identify the number of themes and associated keywords across different policy phases. In addition, a Sankey diagram is constructed to visualize the evolution of policy themes in campus football, allowing for a deeper analysis of thematic characteristics and their evolutionary trajectories, with the aim of revealing the shifting policy focus and goal orientation throughout the development process.

This study utilizes the Jieba Chinese text segmentation tool in Python to tokenize 71 campus school policy documents. To improve segmentation accuracy, domain-specific terms in the field of campus football—such as “campus football” and “Mantianxing Training Camp”—are incorporated into a customized dictionary. The text data were further cleaned using Chinese stop word lists, including the HITU Deactivation Thesaurus. After preprocessing, the LDA2vec model is trained iteratively to extract topics and associated keywords for each stage of campus football development. The optimal number of topics for each stage is determined based on the Perplexity and pyLDAvis visualization tool, with manual intervention used to eliminate semantically incoherent topics (Omar et al., 2015; Farea et al., 2024). The final topic modeling results are presented in Table 4.

Table 4 Results of topic extraction from campus school policy documents.
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Stages of campus football development

This study categorizes the development of campus football into four major phases, primarily based on the time point of significant policy enactments.

Start-up development stage (2009–2014)

In 1992, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) convened a working meeting in Hongshankou, a western suburb of Beijing, to set the direction for the professionalization of Chinese football (Fang and Yang, 2024). At that time, professional football clubs and football schools became the main pathways for cultivating reserve talent. However, this model emphasized competition while neglecting academic education, forcing young players to choose between professional training and general education. As a result, the number of football schools—once exceeding 4000—dropped sharply due to declining enrollment (Li et al., 2022). In 2009, to enhance the role of schools in developing youth talent, promote broader youth participation in football, and address the shortage of reserve talents, the GASC and the MOE jointly issued the Notice on the Development of National Youth Campus Football Activities. This policy called for the widespread implementation of campus football programs in regular primary and secondary schools, the establishment and refinement of a four-tier league system (covering primary schools, junior high schools, senior high schools, and colleges), and the systematic development of youth football reserve talent. This initiative marked the official launch of China’s campus football. According to statistics, from 2009 to 2014, over 100,000 school football matches were held annually, involving 5161 participating schools and resulting in the training of 2608 competitive football reserve talents (Qiu and Qin, 2021).

Development of the incremental stage (2015–2019)

In November 2014, the State Council convened a national video and teleconference on youth campus football, during which Vice Premier Liu Yandong emphasized that the development of campus football was a major and urgent strategic task (China Government Website, 2014). Subsequently, in March 2015, the Overall Program of Chinese Football Reform and Development, issued by the General Office of the State Council, elevated campus football to the level of national strategy. The plan proposed promoting the widespread adoption of campus football and set targets of establishing 20,000 campus football-specialized schools by 2020 and 50,000 by 2025. In the same year, the MOE issued the Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Youth Campus Football, outlining the primary objectives and future development trajectory of campus football (Ministry of Education, 2015). According to statistics, from 2015 to 2019, the number of campus football-specialized schools grew from just over 5000 to 27,059, surpassing the target of 20,000 schools set for 2020 ahead of schedule (Miao et al., 2020). During the same period, the four-tier league system (covering primary schools, junior high schools, senior high schools, and colleges) attracted approximately 12.55 million participants, trained approximately 350,000 teachers, and constructed or renovated 32,432 campus football fields (Ministry of Education, 2019).

Development deepening stage (2020–2023)

In December 2019, the MOE held a press conference, where the then Director of the Department of Physical Education, Health, and Arts Education proposed the development of an “upgraded version” of campus football (Ministry of Education, 2019). This initiative aimed to optimize the existing development system and further accelerate the advancement of campus football. Subsequently, in September 2020, the MOE issued the Action Plan for the Construction of the Eight Major Systems of National Youth Campus Football, which emphasized deepening the implementation of both the Overall Program of Chinese Football Reform and Development and the Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Youth Campus Football(Ministry of Education, 2020). The plan focused on optimizing and enhancing systems related to popularization and promotion, teaching and training, competitions and leagues, teacher development, and publicity and guidance. According to statistics, from 2020 to 2023, 5701 new schools with campus football-specialized were added, bringing the total to 32,760, which has played an important role in supporting the comprehensive development of campus football in China (Ministry of Education, 2024b).

Efficiency and quality improvement stage (2024–present)

Currently, the MOE has selected and recognized 37,261 schools with campus football-specialized, falling short of the 50,000 target set by the Overall Program of Chinese Football Reform and Development (Ministry of Education, 2025). Meanwhile, after nearly 15 years of large-scale and wide-ranging experimental work in campus football, signs of fatigue—both material and psychological—have inevitably emerged. Compared to the initial stage of its implementation, the nationwide enthusiasm for campus football has evidently declined (Mao, 2024). In response, in February 2024, the MOE issued the Implementation Opinions on Strengthening and Improving Youth School Football in the New Era, aiming to address the prominent issues facing the reform and development of campus football. Meanwhile, the document seeks to promote the healthy, sustainable, and high-quality development of campus football, and it also calls on campus football practitioners to commit to sustained efforts, remain grounded in present realities, and work steadily to elevate the development of campus football to a new level (Ministry of Education, 2024a).

Results

X-dimension analysis

Evolutionary analysis of policy tools in campus football

As illustrated in Fig. 2, the fluctuation in the number of policy tools closely mirrors the stages of campus football policy development. In the Start-up development stage, following the issuance of the Notice, there was a brief increase, but the total number of policy tools remained limited. During the Development of the incremental stage, when football was elevated to the level of national strategy, the number of tools surged and reached its peak. In the Development deepening stage, external factors contributed to a sharp decline in policy tools. Subsequently, in the Efficiency and Quality Improvement stage, the number of tools rebounded slightly. Overall, the configuration of policy tools across the stages exhibits a structural imbalance characterized by an overemphasis on environmental tools, underutilization of supply-oriented tools, and an absence of demand-oriented tools. The dominance of environmental tools reflects the policy system’s priority on improving the institutional environment for campus football, aiming to cultivate a positive football culture and expand youth participation. The underutilization of supply-oriented tools reveals an implementation inertia within the system, where there is a tendency to prioritize planning over investment and guidance over substantive guarantees. This long-term neglect weakens the effectiveness of supply-oriented tools and risks rendering them symbolic rather than functional. Finally, the lack of demand-oriented tools restricts the formation of a virtuous cycle driven by market feedback, resulting in a continued reliance on policy interventions and limiting the prospects for sustainable development.

Fig. 2
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Overall evolution trend of policy tools.

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To further explore the evolution of governmental application of the 13 sub-policy tools, this study employs a curve chart to visualize the changing frequency of each tool across the four policy stages (See Fig. 3).

Fig. 3
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Evolutionary trend of secondary policy tools.

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Among supply-oriented policy tools, talent development accounts for 8.5% of all tools, surpassing capital investment (5.7%), technical support (4.3%), information services (4.3%), and infrastructure construction (3.3%). During the start-up development stage, policy authorities provided direct financial support for campus football through capital investment and required the establishment of independent accounts to ensure appropriate allocation and usage of funds. At the development of the incremental stage, greater emphasis was placed on information services to accelerate the widespread adoption of campus football. In the development deepening stage, technical support emerged as a key focus, with the Action Plan underscoring the integration of technologies such as the Internet, big data, and artificial intelligence into football-related initiatives. Furthermore, the government has consistently prioritized talent development across all stages. This sustained emphasis reflects the broader educational context in China, where academic actors are traditionally favored over physical education. As a result, physical education remains undervalued, the teaching workforce is inadequate in both capacity and expertise, and the increasing demand for qualified sports educators has become a significant constraint hindering the advancement of campus football.

Among the environmental policy tools, strategic measures account for 43.8% of the total, significantly exceeding regulatory control (13.8%), target planning (9.7%), and the combined share of supply- and demand-oriented tools (32.8%), thereby occupying an overwhelmingly dominant position. By contrast, tax incentives represent only 0.1%, rendering them virtually negligible. In the start-up development stage, target planning was emphasized, although it remained relatively general and lacked sufficient specificity and precision. During the development of the incremental stage, the government employed tax incentives only once, in response to donations of football apparel and equipment by enterprises and civil society actors. In the development deepening stage and the efficiency and quality improvement stage, multi-level policy reviews were conducted systematically, and a series of guiding policy documents were successively issued, with greater emphasis placed on the use of regulatory control. Moreover, strategic measures consistently played a dominant role across all stages, marked by precise control over implementation and a synergistic relationship between regulatory control and target planning. This combination effectively mitigated their respective limitations in practice and expanded the possibilities for effective policy implementation.

Among the demand-oriented policy tools, overseas exchanges accounted for the highest proportion (4.4%), while government procurement (1.6%) and outsourcing services (0.7%) were used significantly less. Trade controls were not employed at all. During the start-up development stage, the government’s use of demand-oriented tools—other than overseas exchanges—was virtually non-existent. It was only during the development of the incremental stage and deepening stage that the government began experimenting with tools such as government procurement and outsourcing services to attract social capital into campus football. However, due to the limited application of these tools, market mechanisms failed to be fully activated. Notably, the government consistently emphasized overseas exchanges, adhering to a balanced approach of “bringing in” and “going out,” and actively promoted the integration of youth training coaches, young athletes, and other relevant groups with international standards. This laid an important foundation for enhancing the international competitiveness of campus football in China.

Y-dimension analysis

Evolutionary analysis of policy actors in campus football

This study employs bubble charts to visualize the number of policy documents issued by each actor across different years. In charts, the larger the bubble, the greater the number of policy documents released by the corresponding actor in a given year. As shown in Fig. 4, the MOE, the GASC, and the CFA have emerged as the three most prominent issuers of campus football policies. Among them, the MOE holds a dominant position, having participated in the issuance of 61 policy texts, followed by the GASC and the CFA. In the start-up development stage, the primary goal of cultivating football talent resulted in limited enthusiasm from the education sector to engage in the initiative, leading to a campus football predominantly shaped by the sports administration (Qin and Liu, 2019). During the development of the incremental stage, the release of the Circular on Establishing the National Leading Group for Youth School Football signified the emergence of a collaborative governance mechanism spearheaded by the MOE, involving coordinated participation from multiple governmental departments. During the development deepening stage, the collaborative governance mechanism under the leadership of the MOE was further institutionalized, with the CFA formally incorporated as a key stakeholder in the Action Plan for the Construction of the Eight Major Systems of National Youth Campus Football. At the efficiency and quality improvement stage, the engagement of six departments—including the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, and the All-China Women’s Federation—elevated the inter-agency collaboration framework underpinning youth football reform and development to a new level, thereby indirectly strengthening institutional safeguards for the development of campus football.

Fig. 4
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Statistics of document issued by policy subjects.

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Evolutionary analysis of the social network structure of campus football policy actors

This study employs Gephi software to visualize the evolving social network structure of campus school policy actors (See Fig. 5). In the visualizations, node size represents the frequency of document issuance by each actor, while edge thickness indicates the frequency of joint issuances. As shown in Fig. 5, during the start-up development stage, fewer actors were involved in campus school policymaking, and a social network had not yet taken shape. In the development of the incremental stage, the MOE assumed a leading role and collaborated with the Ministry of Finance (MOF), the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA), the GASC, and the Communist Youth League Central Committee (CYLCC) to establish a leading group for advancing campus football efforts. In the development deepening stage, although the number of policy actors participating in document issuance declined, actors’ co-occurrence within the network intensified, and multi-sectoral collaboration in campus football governance became more structured, resulting in a moderately dense network structure. At the efficiency and quality improvement stage, a total of twelve actors participated in document issuance. Both the frequency and depth of inter-agency collaboration increased, and a mature social network structure emerged, forming a compact, multi-actor governance network.

Fig. 5
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Trends in the evolution of policy subject co-occurring networks.

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Z-dimension analysis

Evolutionary analysis of policy thematic characteristics in campus football

As shown in Table 4, during the start-up development stage, the policy theme was exploratory in nature, emphasizing the establishment of a foundational development framework for school football and setting the stage for future expansion. During the development of the incremental stage, campus football emerged as a cornerstone of China’s broader football reform. Policy priorities shifted towards the establishment of campus Football-specialized schools, pilot counties (districts), and reform demonstration zones, in order to accelerate the promotion and dissemination of campus football. Simultaneously, the implementation mechanisms for campus football-related activities have been further refined. In addition, 360 demonstration lesson plans specifically for campus football have been developed and disseminated. More than 12.55 million students have participated in the four-tier league system (covering primary schools, junior high schools, senior high schools, and colleges), and a cumulative total of approximately 350,000 teachers have received professional training (Guangming Daily, 2019). These developments have collectively facilitated the gradual improvement of the integrated system for campus football instruction, competitions, and teacher development, contributing to the ongoing refinement of the structural framework for campus football development. During the development deepening stage, the campus football policy system has been further refined through the establishment of a five-pronged framework of specialized initiatives. This framework consists of Football-specialized schools, high-level university football teams, pilot counties (districts), reform pilot zones, and Mantianxing training camps. These efforts aim to achieve the dual objectives of broad-based participation and elite development in campus football. During the efficiency and quality improvement stage, the MOE issued the Notice on the Review of National Youth Campus Football Characteristic Schools to implement evaluations and establish a standardized assessment and exit mechanism aimed at strengthening oversight and accountability. Meanwhile, the Implementation Opinions on Strengthening and Improving Youth School Football in the New Era emphasized enhancing the cultural development of school football and organizing diverse cultural activities, aiming to foster its connotative development. As a result, cultural construction has emerged as a new focal point of campus football policy.

Evolutionary analysis of policy themes in campus football

In this study, the semantic similarity of campus football policy themes at each stage was quantified using cosine similarity, and the resulting similarity metrics were used to infer thematic relationships across stages. A Sankey diagram illustrating the evolution of policy themes was generated using the pyecharts library in Python (see Fig. 6). In this diagram, the width of each flow represents the relative importance of themes within each stage, while the flow between themes indicates the diffusion or fusion of themes across stages (Li, 2024). Figure 6 illustrates that only one pathway of campus football policy themes exhibits a coherent evolutionary trajectory. The primary stages in this pathway are: “Campus football activities launched”/“Construction of designated schools” → “Development of football-specialized schools and pilot counties” → “Construction of football-specialized schools and Mantianxing training camps” → “Review of campus football”/“Football reserve personnel training.” Each phase of campus football carries distinct missions and tasks: the initial phase focuses on accelerating the promotion of football-specialized schools and pilot counties (districts); the middle phase emphasizes the development of elite “Mantianxing” training camps; and the current phase institutes a standardized assessment and exit mechanism to strengthen oversight and management of special projects. This progressive and stage-based policy design reflects the scientific and systematic nature of the strategic planning behind campus football development. However, the evolution of other policy themes exhibits fragmentation and weak inter-thematic connectivity. Certain themes—such as “Behavioral guidelines for campus football,” “Development of women’s football,” and “Strengthening the development of campus football”—have not followed a coherent evolutionary trajectory.

Fig. 6
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Evolution trend of campus football policy themes.

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Discussion

This study, based on the theory of policy tools, develops a three-dimensional analytical framework—comprising policy tools, policy actors, and policy themes—employing content analysis, SNA, and the LDA2vec model to systematically examine the evolution of campus football policies in China from 2009 to 2025 through a mixed-methods approach. The findings examine its evolutionary dynamics across three analytical dimensions and provide both theoretical insights and practical recommendations for enhancing the policy framework and guiding its future development. The detailed findings are presented as follows.

(1) The selection of policy tools for campus football reflects both the inherent characteristics of the sports policy domain and the typical strategies employed by policy actors during the policy design process (Ma et al., 2019; Xu et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2022). Within the environmental tools, an over-reliance on strategic measures—although effective in rapidly enhancing the external conditions for campus—fails to adequately support its long-term development. Target planning and Regulatory control play a fundamental and guiding role in advancing school football development. However, the absence of coordinated implementation of complementary tools often results in a policy-practice gap, whereby strong central directives fail to translate into effective actions at the grassroots level. Tax incentives function primarily as a proactive mechanism to encourage the participation of non-governmental actors in the development of campus football. When utilized effectively, such incentives can help reduce the fiscal burden on government resources. Within the supply-oriented policy tools, talent development receives relatively more emphasis, whereas infrastructure construction accounts for the smallest proportion. As a foundational prerequisite for campus football activities, infrastructure directly influences teaching and training quality, cultural development, and even policy implementation. Meanwhile, with the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, scientific and technological support is expected to serve as a key driver for the high-quality development of school football in the new era, with potential applications in teaching and training, teacher development, and information management. Therefore, policy-makers should prioritize optimizing the internal structure of supply-oriented tools, increasing their overall share, and avoiding the misalignment between policy planning and implementation. Within the demand-oriented tools, overseas exchange programs can broaden international perspectives and facilitate the integration of advanced teaching philosophies and training standards from developed countries into campus football. Outsource services and government procurement can encourage market participation, contribute to a diversified supply structure, and enhance the societal dynamism of school football. However, demand-oriented tools remain largely underutilized in the current campus football policy system, despite their unique advantages in facilitating international engagement and regulating market participation.

(2) The continuous expansion of campus football policy actors not only provides essential organizational support for effective policy implementation but also plays a critical role in realizing the full potential of policy outcomes. From the perspective of SNA, the frequency of co-occurrence among policy actors remains relatively low, indicating a need to enhance inter-agency collaboration in policy formulation. For example, the CYLCC has co-appeared with the MOE in only three policy documents, with its role largely confined to auxiliary cultural promotion. Moreover, only a limited number of policy documents—such as the China Women’s Football Reform and Development Program (2022–2035) and the Overall Program of Chinese Football Reform and Development—explicitly define the powers and responsibilities of relevant departments. The resulting ambiguity in authority and responsibility often leads to interdepartmental conflicts, vertical communication breakdowns, and other governance challenges. Therefore, enhancing the frequency of co-occurrence among policy actors to improve coordination, while clarifying their respective roles and responsibilities, is essential to establishing a coherent inter-agency collaboration mechanism—an urgent task in improving the current institutional framework of school football policy.

(3) The main body of the policy dynamically adjusts its strategic focus at different stages according to the direction of the national education reform and the actual needs of campus football development, so that the campus football policy theme presents a stage-by-stage characteristic in the process of promotion. In terms of thematic evolution, only the trajectory of “Special Program System Construction” demonstrates strong internal consistency and sustained development across various stages of policy implementation. By contrast, other policy themes display fragmented development paths, primarily due to the absence of coherent strategic planning. This discontinuity undermines the potential to generate synergistic policy effects.

Practical implications

The findings of this study reveal several challenges in China’s campus football policy and provide targeted recommendations in three dimensions:

Optimizing the structure of policy tools is critical. First, developing differentiated criteria for selecting policy tools is essential to enhance the precision and effectiveness of implementation. In underdeveloped areas, such as rural regions or parts of central and western China, priority should be given to environmental and supply-oriented tools. These tools should be guided by institutional norms that clarify development trajectories and complemented with adequate resource support. Conversely, in economically advanced areas with abundant educational resources, demand-oriented tools should be emphasized. Such tools may involve leveraging social capital, fostering international cooperation, and experimenting with innovative models to support market-driven development of campus football. Second, the emphasis should not be placed on the proportion of policy tools employed, but rather on their coordination and synergy. The configuration of policy tools should be flexibly adjusted in accordance with evolving policy objectives. Regular evaluations of implementation outcomes, coupled with feedback from grassroots practices, can inform the continuous optimization of tool structures. While these recommendations are grounded in the Chinese context, the underlying principles—tailoring tools to local conditions, promoting coordination, and continuously optimizing implementation—may be applicable to other state-led or emerging sport systems facing similar challenges.

Clarifying the functional roles of policy actors is critical for enhancing implementation feasibility. Explicit delineation of responsibilities in policy documents can help prevent overlaps and ambiguities, thereby minimizing conflicts and improving implementation efficiency. Simultaneously, agencies nominally involved should be encouraged to take on more substantive roles. The shift from “coordination on paper” to “co-governance in practice” extends beyond China, extending to other countries where inter-agency collaboration in sport policy is limited, highlighting the value of clearly defined responsibilities and active engagement for successful policy implementation.

Promoting the evolution of policy themes from “multi-point exploration” to “systematic governance” is essential for ensuring long-term sustainability. This necessitates progressive agenda-setting, whereby thematic priorities are clarified at each phase and reinforced through coherent alignment between policy tools and themes. For example, integrating cultural development initiatives with information-based tools or strengthening evaluation mechanisms through regulatory measures constitute strategies that could provide guidance for other countries seeking to align policy tools with thematic priorities in sport development.

Theoretical implications

This study has certain theoretical contributions in the youth sport policy, governance, and policy process research: (1) By integrating policy instrument theory, governance theory, and policy process theory, and employing content analysis, SNA, and LDA2Vec modeling, this study constructs a three-dimensional analytical framework that encompasses policy tools, policy actors, and policy themes. This framework not only provides systematic theoretical support for examining the evolution of China’s campus football policies but also offers novel insights and methods for analyzing policy evolution in broader domains such as sports and education. (2) For policy process theory, the thematic evolution of campus football policies illustrates that policy agendas are shaped not only by problem definition and feedback mechanisms but also by their alignment with overarching state strategies. This highlights the importance of examining policy themes as a dynamic dimension of the policy process, especially in non-Western or state-centric contexts. Overall, this study enriches the theoretical perspectives of sport policy analysis to a certain extent. It deepens the understanding of the interactions among policy tools, policy actors, and policy themes. It also provides a reference framework for subsequent research.

Conclusions

Limitations and future research

Although this study has certain significance, it also has the following limitations. First, all policy texts analyzed in this study were sourced from central government ministries. However, in practice, local authorities frequently adjust the configuration of policy tools to accommodate contextual realities. Therefore, future research could broaden the scope to include local-level policy documents, undertake cross-level comparative analyses, and thereby enrich the understanding of campus football policy. Second, the study’s reliance on textual analysis constrains the assessment of actual policy impacts. Future research could integrate field surveys and interview data to collect first-hand information on policy implementation, thus enhancing both the depth and breadth of the analysis. Additionally, while the LDA2vec model used in this study improves the effectiveness of theme extraction, it still depends on domain-specific preprocessing and manual interpretation, introducing a degree of subjectivity. To enhance objectivity and reliability, future research could incorporate multiple topic modeling algorithms (e.g., BERTopic, Top2Vec, CTM) and apply model consistency metrics such as Jaccard similarity and topic coherence scores for cross-validation.