China could lift the World Cup within a decade, former England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson has claimed, as Xi Jinping pushes on with his football revolution. The Chinese president, lionised by Communist party spin doctors as a die-hard football fan, has vowed to turn China into a footballing superpower as well as an economic one. Construction work has begun on thousands of football academies since he took office in late 2012, as part of the president’s roadmap to transform his country’s on-field fortunes. Top European and South American clubs and coaches have been invited to help China revive its domestic game. Speaking on Tuesday ahead of an Asian Champions League (ACL) clash between his current side, Shanghai SIPG, and Melbourne Victory, Eriksson claimed those efforts were paying off, saying: “The future for China is great.” “I think I’m at the right place at the right time. You can always feel how football is growing in China,” he added, according to Xinhua, Beijing’s official news agency. “I’ve been in Italy during the 90s when every player wanted to come to Italy because the football was very good, then I was in England during the 2000s and all the players wanted to go…