A Russian player and two Chinese players fight for the ball during a friendly soccer match between Beijing Nanhudongyuan Primary School and Russia's Irkutsk Dinamo club youth team in Beijing, Oct 25, 2011. [Photo/CFP]

A soccer official responded to the defeat of Chinese primary school soccer teams by their Russian peers by saying it indicated the country's poor development in amateur soccer, the portal website Sina.com reported Wednesday.

Soccer teams from Beijing Ditan Park Primary School and Nanhudongyuan Primary School lost to Russia's Irkutsk Dinamo club youth team 0:11 and 3:7 respectively earlier this week.

The Russian team is this year's champion team from the country's Siberia region while China's Nanhudongyuan team was once the top team of its year group in Beijing.

The loss of the Chinese teams has sparked hot online debate, with many netizens criticizing soccer authorities as having overlooked the development of soccer on school campuses.

Sun Zhedong, the top official in charge of youth soccer in the Chinese Football Association (CFA) told Sina.com that the score showed amateur soccer is developing better in Russia and these kinds of matches deserve our attention.

Sun classified the matches involving players under the age of 18 or retired professional players as amateur soccer, according to the report.

He believed popularizing campus soccer is conducive to the comprehensive development of young children, for instance, to help them learn how to cooperate with team mates and how to face failure.

Sun acknowledged that the implications of poor youth soccer development will be severe in the future and said the CFA has already taken it as an important task now.