With the 2010 soccer World Cup only a few months away, World Cup fever is picking up around the world. Even in Taiwan, the event will attract a devout following, but contemplating the day when the national team actually makes the big event is an entirely different story. Local soccer experts agree that funding, culture and a proper structure are the keys to developing the sport in Taiwan, where the game has long struggled to gain a foothold. The foremost goal is to create a 'soccer culture, ' which to date has been nonexistent in a nation far more passionate about basketball and baseball, says Lin De-jia, secretary-general of the Chinese Taipei Soccer Association (CTFA). Without a professional league and a soccer culture, children don't have the motivation to participate in the sport, Lin tells the Central News Agency. It's not a secret that Taiwan, currently ranked 162nd in the world, has long been an international soccer minnow, registering five wins, five draws, and 41 losses World Cup qualifying matches from 1958-2010. It scorded only 28 goals in those games while surrending 182. Led by Japanese head coach Toshiaki Imai, Taiwan's World Cup qualifying campaign for the 2010 event quickly evaporated in October 2007 when it was swept by Uzbekistan in a home-and-home series by an aggregate 11-0 score. In order to change its lowly status, Taiwan needs to focus on developing its youth soccer programs, said David Camhi, who is familiar with Taiwanese soccer and has been running a soccer camp for children in Taipei with friends for six years. All training and competitions in Taiwan take place within the education system, based on the U.S. model, as was the case in Japan in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Camhi wrote in his Kick-Off magazine, and he argues it is the wrong approach. 'Japan now has three professional leagues, nine regional leagues, 46 prefecture leagues and many more municipal leagues. A football pyramid with eight levels,' Camhi wrote. With such a structure in place, Japan managed within approximately 12 years to progress to the second round of the FIFA World Cup in 2002 and qualify for the 2006 and 2010 editions. 'It's something the football authorities and other sporting bodies in Taiwan should look into,' Camhi wrote. When there is a much larger talent pool in Taiwan, the overall competition level of the sport will be elevated, said Camhi, who arrived in Taiwan in 1999 and has been working on promoting the game and teaching fundamentals to children since then. Other than the lack of a professional league, funding also has been a problem, Lin said. 'Taiwan's government sees the CTFA as nothing more than one of more than 60 sports associations in the country, ' he complains. According to Lin, the association previously received NT$10 million in funding from the government every year, but the amount dropped to NT$6 million last year. That's a pittance compared to the NT$30 million alone the association must spend to send national teams ranging from under-13 to the senior level abroad to play in 20 to 30 international competitions every year, Lin says. He does acknowledge that there have been some sparks of interest over the past decade, including after the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea when Taiwan's passion for 'the beautiful game' did pick up a little. Since then, Lin said, more schoolchildren have participated in the game, and more schools have organized soccer teams, enabling Taiwan's national youth teams to fare better in competitions. Camhi said a number of elite young Taiwanese players are even capable of playing professionally overseas now, though because they lack exposure they are not recruited by European or South American clubs. But both Lin and Camhi acknowledge that the development of the local game will take a long time and requires patience. Lin urged the government to plan for the long-term rather than rush for immediate results, and he urged authorities to rethink their policy of establishing 'sports classes' -- which gather athletes into a single class -- because it works against achieving the objective. Such classes actually limit participation in sports and discourages schools without sports classes from organizing athletic teams because they cannot keep up with better schools, he argues. And that's not good because the future is with the younger generation, Camhi insists. Only by working from the bottom up can Taiwan improve its soccer performance and some day 'reach my ultimate goal for Taiwan to qualify for the soccer World Cup.' 