/PRZWT/BEIJING, Sept. 30, 2024 - From Oct. 3 to 6, 1,200 players from 80 grass-roots soccer teams from across China will gather in Wuhu, a pearl city on the Anhui River, to compete for the title of the "2024 Wuhu Wuhou Football Competition Finals" with thousands of fans expected to flock to watch the game live and tens of thousands of fans watching online. The game will be broadcast live on the main "Wuhou Football" account of the Douyin platform and other matrix accounts.
According to the Wuhu Municipal Sports Bureau, the organizer of the event, the event is an adult 6-a-side football competition. It will be held in two stages: group stage and elimination stage. A total of more than 200 matches will be held. The participating teams include the national tour champion of this year's Wuhou event, the voting team of netizens and the specially invited special teams. They come from provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions. The team sources cover the whole country.
On the basis of the good reputation and solid foundation accumulated in previous Wuhou events, the competition in this event is unprecedented. In order to compete for the championship trophy, many teams have recruited heroes. Although the participating players are mainly folk grassroots players, they also include the top scorer of the Futsal Super League, the double champion team of the World Cup and the European Cup in last year's six-a-side event, and foreign aid from 28 countries around the world, including Brazil, France, Spain, Chile, etc., becoming the "Little World Cup" of Chinese grassroots football fans.
Li Wei, deputy director of the Wuhu Municipal Sports Bureau, said: "The 2024 Wuhou Football Finals is a key event hosted by the Wuhu Municipal Sports Bureau this year. We hope that by holding this event, we can further promote the improvement of the level of folk football, promote the healthy development of national fitness sports, and also use the event to show the style of Jiangcheng Wuhu to the whole country and even the world through three-dimensional communication methods such as online and offline."
According to Xu Lifu, the founder of the Wuhou event, the name of the event was taken from "Why don't men bring Wuhou and collect fifty states in Guanshan", hoping to express the desire of grassroots football fans to contribute to the development of Chinese football. Since the establishment of the event, it has quickly gained the support and love of folk football fans all over the country, and the scale of the event has also continued to expand.
Taking the Wuhu Hook Finals hosted by Wuhu Bay District Culture, Tourism and Sports Bureau in 2023 as an example, the total number of participating players and on-site fans reached more than 3,500 people, and the game was broadcast live through more than ten accounts on different platforms. The peak number of live online people on the whole network exceeded 100,000, and the cumulative video views reached 200 million times.
This year's event will be expanded from last year's Wuhu Bay District to multiple stadiums in Yijiang District (the main competition area), Bay District, and Fanchang District in the city, providing better conditions for participating teams and spectators. At the same time, this year's event will also use Wuhou's own Mini Program combined with Yushi Technology AI intelligent sports equipment for the first time, allowing participating teams to easily register. Fans and fans will be informed of the event schedule, ranking points, event video playback, and download of exciting moments for the first time. It is expected that the influence and coverage of the event will continue to expand.
It is reported that the event held in the Bay Area of Wuhu City last year not only effectively promoted the brand of "Romantic Bay", but also stimulated the local tourism, catering and hotel industries. It also used the live broadcast of the event to promote some local characteristic agricultural products to the whole country. "With the help of continuing to hold this event this year, we expect to better and effectively play the joint efforts of'government + carrier + brand ', promote the integrated development of'sports +', and stimulate the vitality and potential brought by sports events to urban development," Li Wei said.
