Wei Di's proposal is aimed at giving China's future internationals more experience of training and playing together and thereby improving China's chances of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup finals.
Domestic media have poured scorn on the plan, pointing out its contradictions, pillorying Wei for being an old-fashioned adherent of the Soviet-style sport system and suggesting he must have lost his senses.
"Some journalists said I must have been kicked in the head by a donkey," Wei told Friday's Yangtse Evening News.
"But I am not insulting anybody's intelligence. This was not an off-the-cuff suggestion and it will be decided by a democratic vote."
Wei, who assumed control at the Chinese Football Association (CFA) after the arrest of his predecessor for match-fixing in January, enjoyed huge Olympic success in his previous job as the nation's head of water sports.
The plan to keep the nation's most promising young players together for a long period has echoes of the dispatch of a Chinese squad for training in Hungary in the 1950s and more recently similar groups sent to Brazil and Germany.
"We have to adhere to the state system, which is China's unique advantage. Why can't we make use of it?" Wei added.
"Nobody set me the goal (of qualifying) for 2014. It was the requirement I have set for myself. Therefore I came upon this idea."
