(Yicai Global) Oct. 16 -- One of the first major moves of the new chief of the Chinese Football Association will be to reduce the national soccer organization's influence in the Chinese Super League, looking to improve the fundamentals of the highest tier of professional football in China.

The CFA will unload its full stake and withdraw from day-to-day management of the CSL so the next step will be setting up an alliance to manage the CSL, which will promote the professionalization of Chinese soccer, state-backed The Paper reported. The CFA currently has a 36 percent stake in the CSL while the rest is divided between 16 professional leagues, public data show.

The move comes only two months after Chen Xuyuan, former chairman of the Shanghai International Port Group, was elected chairman of the CFA. The expectations are sky-high as China plans to cultivate one of the world's strongest soccer teams by 2050. Chinese men's soccer team made it to its first World Cup in 2002 but the team was eliminated in the group stage.

The prerequisite for CFA's development is decentralizing its power toward a more market-oriented approach, Liu Yi, CFA's new secretary-general, told The Paper at a press conference today. The CFA should have property and supervision rights over the CSL but the future alliance ought to take care of the latter's daily management and equity distribution.

On Oct. 10, the CFA met up with the general managers of 16 CSL clubs in southern China's Guangzhou to propose setting up the alliance later this month or early next month. This would involve borrowing management concepts from European leagues, deploying salary caps for players, and adjusting foreign aid policies.

Editor: Emmi Laine