BEIJING, Nov 27 — The cancer of match-fixing in Chinese football must go, said the state media yesterday in a near unanimous call to clean up the country’s most popular sport.
Amid China’s biggest crackdown on football corruption, observers urged the authorities not to stop their hunt despite detaining 16 players and officials so far.
This is a chance, said commentators who praised the dragnet, to rid the sport of its abysmal image and rescue the “beautiful game” after years of scandals.
“China’s football is critically ill,” said the state Xinhua news agency in an opinion piece. “In its abyss, the law enforcers finally unleashed their lightning strength. This time, the roots must be pulled out along with the grass.”
The crackdown is aided by evidence from a match-rigging scheme in Singapore. Among those arrested so far is Wang Xin, the former general manager of S-League team Liaoning Guangyuan. He had fled Singapore last year while on trial for allegedly fixing six S-League matches in 2007. Wang, who is also suspected of rigging matches in the Chinese league, was detained in Liaoning in April this year but the authorities announced it only this week.
The arrests were the top story in newspapers and websites here yesterday, reflecting the persistently strong public interest in Chinese football, despite its woeful record.
The sport has been riddled with fraud for years, with match-fixing and bribery of referees an open secret.
“There have been secret rules in Chinese soccer. I thought since everyone was bribing and manipulating matches, we would suffer for our honesty if we didn’t follow the practice,” said former Guangzhou Football Association vice-president Yang Xu, one of those detained.
“I know it was wrong but I thought we could get away with it.”
The authorities had done little, with the previous crackdown in 2001 nabbing only one errant referee.
“That encouraged those who were willing to take risks to have even fewer inhibitions to take bribes,” The Beijing News said in its editorial yesterday.
“The public has been waiting for the police to conduct a full investigation, remove the thick ‘black curtains’ and give China’s football a thorough cleansing,” it added.
Match-fixing is not the only problem plaguing the sport. It is also marred by violence, with fights common on and off the pitch.
Hooliganism is rife too. After winning the China Super League for the first time last month, Beijing fans thrashed a Mercedes-Benz parked outside the capital’s Workers’ Stadium because it carried a Tianjin licence plate. Tianjin fans had earlier stoned the team bus of the Beijing players.
The domestic league has such a poor image that state broadcaster China Central Television stopped broadcasting its matches in November last year.
The national team is not any better. It is ranked 97th in the world, behind much smaller countries such as Malawi and Zambia. It has also failed to qualify for next year’s World Cup.
In its only World Cup finals appearance in 2002 — largely because Japan and South Korea qualified automatically as hosts — China lost all three games without scoring a single goal.
Fans and even politicians seem to have run out of patience.
Last month, in an unusual move, three top leaders — President Hu Jintao, Vice-President Xi Jinping and State Councillor Liu Yandong — called for the sport’s revamp. A nationwide probe was announced days after, resulting in the arrests.
“Match-fixing is a ‘cancer’ in football competition and should be attacked and eradicated ruthlessly,” Chinese Football Association Vice-President Nan Yong told Xinhua yesterday.
“Otherwise, Chinese football will not have a stable, healthy environment in which to develop.” — The Straits Times
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
