What Is the Chengshi Cup? The 2015 Guangdong-Hubei Charity Soccer Match

On May 2, 2015, the floodlights came on at Guangdong Provincial People’s Stadium in Guangzhou. But this was not a league fixture. There was no title at stake, no relegation battle to fight. This was a match designed so that nobody could lose.

The Chengshi Cup Guangdong-Hubei Charity Soccer Match was organized by Guangdong Celebrity Football Club and co-sponsored by Chengshi Group and FYT (then operating as Riche88). Every yuan raised that day had a single destination: Guangzhou Social Welfare Institute, earmarked for the education of orphaned and disabled children.

The moment that silenced the entire stadium came during the exhibition match. On one side of the pitch stood 33 children from the welfare institute. On the other, 11 veteran national football players. Thirty-three against eleven — the numerical mismatch was the whole point. This was not competition. It was adults showing up in the most earnest way they knew how, to play a game of football with kids who rarely get the chance.

Guangzhou television broadcast the match in full. What the cameras captured went beyond goals and cheers. They recorded something rarer: children running across a professional pitch with the kind of unguarded, unrestrained joy that their daily lives seldom allow.

Which Veteran Players Participated? The 33-vs-11 Heartwarming Exhibition

The retired national players who walked onto the field that day were, each one, a recognized figure in Chinese football history.

The Guangdong squad featured Qu Chuliang, Hu Zhijun, Xie Yuxin, Wang Huiliang, Li Haifa, and Li Jianhua. Hu Zhijun had been the top scorer of the 1994 season. Xie Yuxin remains one of the youngest players ever capped for the Chinese national team. From Hubei came Lin Qiang, Yin Lihua, Chen Fangping, Liu Wuyi, Zhang Bin, and Yu Jie — pillars of their respective eras.

But on that afternoon, none of the accolades mattered. These men who had once commanded national stadiums had only one role: to play ball with children. They deliberately slowed their pace, angled their passes so the kids could reach them, and led the applause when a child found the back of the net. Some things are worth more than winning a match. That afternoon’s 33-against-11 was the proof.

The event drew significant media attention, with Guangzhou television stations providing live coverage. Sponsors donated equipment and funds, and spectators — including the Hubei veteran team themselves — contributed additional donations on the spot. For a single day, sportsmanship, celebrity, and genuine philanthropy converged on one pitch.

What Rural Donations Has FYT Made? Hands-On Charity in Remote China

If the Chengshi Cup was a charitable act performed under stadium lights, then the rural donation trips were something fundamentally different — no cameras, no broadcast, just muddy roads and mountains that never seemed to end.

The team pulled on t-shirts printed with three Chinese characters: “Spread the Love” (把爱传出去). They loaded vans with Tianfu brand cooking oil — a Sichuan specialty — along with bags of rice, and drove into some of the most remote villages in China. Their destinations were places that barely register on maps, where rural schools lack the funding for basic education and families struggle to meet the most fundamental needs.

This was not the kind of charity that ends with a wire transfer and a photo opportunity. The team walked into villages along muddy footpaths, knocked on doors that rarely see outside visitors, and entered homes where the need was immediate and visible. School bags, footballs, crayons, stationery sets, clothing — every item was placed directly into a child’s hands. The cooking oil and rice stacked in the van were heavy with more than their own weight; they carried the substance of a promise kept. The smiles on children’s faces when they received a new school bag were weightless by comparison, yet they are the returns that no commercial achievement can replicate.

These trips produced no sponsor banners, no media follow-ups. And perhaps that is precisely what made them genuine. Charity that is not performed for an audience is charity that answers to a different standard — not public approval, but private conviction.

What Is “The Forgotten Children”? A Documentary Report of Charitable Action

The team documented these experiences in a report they titled “The Forgotten Children” (那些被遗忘的孩子).

The name was not chosen for literary effect. It was a description of fact. In China’s remote mountain regions, there are children growing up in the blind spots of social attention — their educational needs unmet, their daily hardships unseen, their circumstances nearly invisible to anyone living in a city. The report chronicled the families visited, the schools supported, and the children encountered, with the straightforward purpose of making these easily forgotten faces harder to overlook.

It is not a public relations document. It is an archive of action — each page backed by a road actually traveled, a hand actually held, a need actually addressed. The report stands as a reference point for the team’s own accountability: a reminder of where they have been and what remains to be done.

What Does “Spread the Love” Mean? FYT’s Charitable Philosophy

Five Chinese characters — 把爱传出去 — were printed on the team’s charity t-shirts. Over time, they became something more than a slogan. They became an operating principle.

From the green turf of a Guangzhou stadium to the unpaved trails of mountain villages, from the laughter of 33 children on a professional pitch to the weight of rice and oil stacked inside a van, FYT defined its understanding of social responsibility through a consistent pattern: not posture, but movement; not volume, but weight. The brand mascot Ah Fu (阿富) also appeared at charity events in person, interacting with children and attendees, bringing warmth and familiarity in the way that only a beloved character can.

For a VIP-focused brand, the decision to walk into rural mountains and onto charity soccer fields is not an obvious one. The customers FYT serves operate in a world of discretion, sophistication, and high stakes. But the brand has maintained a quiet conviction: a company’s character is measured not only by the quality of service it provides to its clients, but by the attention it pays to people who have no commercial relevance whatsoever.

Goodwill should not remain words on a page. Walk out. Hand it over. Pass it on. That is what “Spread the Love” means — and that is what FYT chose to do.