HANGZHOU, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- FIFA president Joseph S. Blatter hailed the technical quality of women's soccer here on Thursday, saying he was surprised by many teams' play at the ongoing 2007 World Cup in China.

"Generally speaking, I was surprised by the big improvement of the technical qualities of the teams," the head of the world football governing body told a press conference.

"Personally I like a lot of the matches. The level really surprised me, especially for the individual qualities."

"There has been an improvement in the speed of the games. Also, importantly, though not by all the teams, there has been an improvement in tactics."

Blatter said women's football has made big strides since the last World Cup four years ago in the United States, but admitted that there is a problem of unbalance in different continents.

"It's not fine in all the continents, and that's our duty to help them," he said.

FIFA will hold the Under 20 and Under 17 World Women's Youth Championship in Chile and New Zealand respectively in 2008 and Blatter believes that it will bring big momentum to the continents concerned.

Blatter added that currently just a few countries have women's professional football leagues, which needs to be changed in the future.