New Chinese Football Association president Chen Xuyuan speaks Thursday in Xianghe, Hebei Province. Photo: VCG

Chen Xuyuan was elected president of the Chinese Football Association (CFA) at its 11th membership conference at the Xianghe National Football Training Center in Hebei Province on Thursday, with three experienced soccer professionals voted as vice presidents.

The 63-year-old Chen, formerly president of Shanghai International Port Group, which owns the Chinese Super League (CSL) club Shanghai SIPG, has been working as head of the preparation team for the CFA election since May 24 this year.

Du Zhaocai, Gao Hongbo and Sun Wen were named CFA vice presidents.

Du, 59, serves as deputy minister of China's State General Administration of Sport, and is also a FIFA council member and AFC Referees Committee chairman. He has been working in the CFA since July 2017.

Gao, 53, is a former Chinese international soccer player, and has twice served as the head coach of the Chinese men's national team, from 2009 to 2011 and again in 2016.

Sun, 46, was the captain of the Chinese women's national team and voted FIFA Female Player of the Century in 2000. She now serves as director of the women's youth training department of the CFA.

In addition to the new president and vice presidents, the new 35-member executive committee elected by the conference includes representatives from CSL clubs, media, schools, local soccer associations and other soccer-related sectors.

The new leadership of China's soccer governing body has vowed to carry out the reform plan published by Chinese government in 2015, in which the country would aim to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in the short term, and become a ­soccer powerhouse by 2050 in the long term. 

In Chen's blueprint, the future CSL should operate as an independent and market-­oriented corporation like the Premier League in England and Spain's La Liga, in which member clubs act as shareholders. The CFA would no longer be ­involved in the day-to-day operation of the league, instead functioning as a supervisory body.