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On August 17, after nine days of competition in six divisions, the 2024 41st China Football Development Foundation-DiDi-Beijing Evening News Hundred Teams Cup Football Tournament came to an end, and the closing ceremony was held at Yinghai Football Theme Park and other places. At the closing ceremony, Yang Zhuoyuan, one of the founders of the Hundred Teams Cup Football Tournament, also came to the scene, and he was full of emotion about the current scale and influence of the Hundred Teams Cup.

40 years ago, Yang Zhuoyuan was a cadre in charge of school sports in the Mass Department of Beijing Municipal Sports Committee. He participated in the founding of the Hundred Teams Cup Football Tournament. Yang Zhuoyuan said: "I am very honored to be one of the initiators of the Hundred Teams Cup. It has been 40 years in the blink of an eye. Seeing the scale and changes of the Hundred Teams Cup today, as well as its huge influence, really makes me feel deeply moved."

Yang Zhuoyuan fondly recalled some of the past events when the Hundred Teams Cup was founded. He said that the original intention at that time was to build a platform for children to play football games. Because there are so many children who love football, it was unexpected that more than one hundred teams signed up for the first event. After discussion among the organizers, the name of the Hundred Teams Cup was decided.

Yang Zhuoyuan recalled that we thought there should be prizes for the first Hundred Teams Cup, so he took a bus to find Beijing Rubber Factory No. 1. When the factory heard about our intention, they readily provided 200 pairs of rubber football shoes as prizes. These prizes were deeply loved and cherished by the children at that time.

The Hundred Teams Cup has gone through 40 years of history, and now has undergone earth-shaking changes in competition conditions, scale, influence, competition system, etc. Yang Zhuoyuan said: "This year, there are more than 16,000 participants. To have such a large scale, we have to thank all the organizers for their decades of efforts. Because of you, the Hundred Teams Cup has achieved what it has today. In the future, I hope that the Hundred Teams Cup will get better and better and work hard towards a centennial event."

Source: Beijing Sports

Reporter: Deng Fangjia, Zhuoran, Liu Ping