'Evil Empire': Two words from former US president Ronald Reagan that would later become a part of sport history

On March 8, 1983, in Orlando, Florida, former United States President Ronald Reagan gave a speech where he was first recorded to have said the phrase “evil empire”. At that time tensions between the US and the Soviet Union were at an all time high and it seemed that the Cold War would continue well on into the next millennium.

Fast forward to the present time and we find ourselves living in a much different world. However, that one phrase, over time, has become a popular term used in sport, primarily in the US. Major League Baseball powerhouse the New York Yankees have regularly been associated with the name. Even in some corners of the world some people claim that English Premier League side Manchester United are just as much an evil empire as the Yankees.

The New York Yankees are the most recognized team in the world that is graced with title of 'evil empire'

So, you might be asking yourself, what qualifies a team to be graced with the name? It is basically set on three criteria: one, the team is loaded with money; two, they are able to woo many of the top players onto their teams without even breaking a sweat (in this age of technology some teams probably just send an offer through text message); third, they always win.

Since the era of professionalism entered into Chinese sport, many of the current clubs have labored to bring in quality talent from abroad to enhance their teams chance of winning titles. However, as the Chinese economy has rapidly grown, many companies or individuals have found an interest in owning a professional franchise, or at least providing financial support. With this new money come increased interest in not only bringing in the best players and coaches, it also means that teams want to dominate the sport they are in, no matter it be in the country or internationally.

So, which sports teams in China could be flirting with having the title of ‘evil empire’ attached to them? Five come to mind and each have their own reasons.

If you think winning the CSL crown was enough for Evergrande, just wait to see what else they have in store

1) Guangzhou Evergrande FC
Reasons that make them a candidate for the ‘evil empire’ tag:

- Receives financial backing from the Evergrande Real Estate Group, one of the largest real estate developers in the country.

- Relegated to the second division, the team showed how much financial clout they had by signing Chinese internationals Gao Lin, Zheng Zhi and Sun Xiang. They made a domestic record-breaking transfer by signing Brazilian Muriqui.

- Upon being promoted as champions of the second division, the club spent more money by signing Brazilian Cleo and Argentine Dario Conca.

- Has vowed that they would not only dominate the China Super League, but they have ambitious plans to conquer Asia as well by becoming the first Chinese club to win the AFC Asian Champions League.

- They have money and they are not in the least afraid to spend it.

2) Guangdong Southern Tigers
Reasons that make them a candidate for the ‘evil empire’ tag:

-They are the reigning China Basketball Association champions

-On the verge of tying rival Bayi Rockets record of most CBA titles which stands at eight. They could possibly surpass it with the talent they have on the team. Speaking of talent…

-They have the best domestic players in the league accompanied by quality foreign imports. It almost seems like they have factory down there. One set of players go out and a new crop of younger players come in and keep the championship run going.

- They realize they do not have to be the best team, regular season-wise, but when the playoffs come around, they find a way annihilate their opponents (just ask the Xinjiang Flying Tigers about that).

- It is just simple, they win and fans from other teams hate it when another team in just that dominant.

3) Xinjiang Flying Tigers
Reasons that make them a candidate for the ‘evil empire’ tag:

- As with most other teams that have been blessed with the name, they have a lot of money and spend on hiring mercenaries.

- Because they have a lot of money they can virtually sign any players they want in hopes of finally clinching their first CBA championship (examples, Quincy Douby, Kenyon Martin).

- They have enough money to bring in two of China’s big men to capture the title (Mengke Bateer and Tang Zhengdong).

- They have thrown a pile of cash in front of China’s men’s basketball team coach Bob Donewald Jr. to help them get their championship.

Evergrande not only wants to dominate football, but volleyball is also in their plans for domestic sport domination

4) Guangdong Evergrande Women’s Volleyball Club
Reasons that make them a candidate for the ‘evil empire’ tag:

- Owned by the same group that operates the football club.

- Spends the money to sign top domestic and international volleyball players (Logan Tom, Feng Kun, Yang Hao, Jovana Brakocevic, etc.). in hopes of winning the women’s volleyball championship

- Has the coach that brought the Chinese women’s national volleyball squad back into prominence, (Jenny)Lang Ping, in hopes that her leadership will guide the club to many championships.

Shanghai Shenhua chairman, Zhu Jun

5) Shanghai Shenhua FC
Reasons that make them a candidate for the ‘evil empire’ tag:

- Two words, Zhu Jun (朱骏), the eccentric chairman of the East China based club is in the headlines more than the team. Most can remember is brief appearance on the pitch in an exhibition match against English Premier League side Liverpool FC. Zhu can almost be considered the George Steinbrenner of sport executives in China.

- Before the emergence of Evergrande, Shenhua was the most talked about and hated team in the China Super League. Now, they maybe getting that moniker back after signing Frenchman Nicolas Anelka. They seem close to signing French manager Jean Tigana and, if there still any money left, they might be going after another well-known footballer (no speculation coming from this post).

- You can be sure that there is never a dull moment at Hongkou. The chairman’s huge sale of players back in 2009 and his constant change in managers are just two examples. With the impending arrival of Anelka and others, this could make the dramtics that happen at Shenhua next season even more exciting.

Evil empires are what make sport exciting to watch and follow. They are the ones that get us out to the stadiums and arenas around the world just to show our disgust for them for two or three hours. They are the reasons why people call into sports radio shows and write on the internet. We just love to hate them. This is what could be a huge boost for the sports leagues in China and there are a number of teams that could fill that role very well.

Whether any team is up for the challenge of taking on that role is question we will just have to wait on.

Photos

Daily Contributor

Volleywood

Gzevergrandefc.com

China.org.cn

In the video, Harvey Davis, vice president at ESPN’s Events Management Group, reckons that “these [action] sports are now recognized in China as real sports, with real committees and real organizations reporting up to the top government organizations in Beijing” and concluded that as “one of the biggest things for the growth of sport in China.” With that comes, as in the case of Shanghainese BMX rider Shen Jian and his friends, a clash of interest between government organization and athletes/brands.

China has definitely been picking up actions sports in the past five years. But just because promoters established ties with the government, doesn’t mean the sports become mainstream in the country. And I think part of the image of the sports, as manifested in tattoos and piercings for most of the athletes, may be the main reason why Chinese parents would not want their children to practice in it.

In the Shen Jian story, we had a chance to talk with Chen Jie, CEO of SMP Skate Park in Shanghai. The world largest skate-park now has about 2,000 members and over ninety percent of them, according to Mr.Chen, are foreigners.

“It looks now we’re turning into a club catering exclusively to foreigners,” said Chen. “Some wealthy Chinese send their kids here to play only because they want their children to be more international, as the children could speak English with kids from other countries in the park.”

“They focus on language exchange, not the sports themselves, which again turned practitioners of extreme sports into a minority group.” Chen is cutting down on the ticket prices this June in hopes of bringing more local kids in, but he opines the results might not be fruitful.

Also in the video, PT Black commentates on sports participation in the country and why Chinese are more likely to watch than actually play sports.

Part of the reason, PT noted, comes from “a legacy of centralized sports planning” which “takes all the kids who’re good at sports out of the mainstream school system, therefore depriving their classmates of the chance to actually play with the good kids.”

Parents are the “biggest obstacle” and another reason to the lack of participation in PT’s opinion. “When the exam system is so important, parents look at any moment dedicated to sports as a moment that should have been spend studying.”

Any other reasons? This is actually what we look forward to finding out at Sports Illustrated China as the magazine is rolling out a cover feature on the topic. So more later on this.

This is the 2nd part of the post on 2011 Kia X Games Asia. Read the 1st part here.

“It is what it is. I’m going back to play for a while, just to take it in.” Shen Jian squeezed a smile at me and then walked back onto the stage. Only less than 10 minutes left for him to “play.”

Minutes later, Shen stepped down from the stage with Li Haoran and watched the elimination match with his team in athletes’ area. Behind him, there were a few DJs, organizers and media people scattered on the stand. Looking from afar, a middle-aged man stood out from the others. He wore a blue shirt and khaki pants. The pants seemed a bit short that you could see his legs. The man, as I later found out, is Wei Xing (魏星), general secretary at the CESA.

Shen watching the game after being pulled out at the last minute

“It’s not the association doesn’t want him to compete. We have a set of rules that the athletes need to follow.” Wei told me when I asked him about Shen Jian’s last-minute pullout, and said Shen was out for “a multitude of reasons” that he ” has no time to go into details.”

The details about the incident, as I later heard from a friend close to an ESPN staffer, was that people from the association asked this ESPN guy right before the match to remove all Chinese athletes who’s not from the national teams from the list. If failed to cooperate, the CESA would not give them the permit to host the X Games Asia in China next year.

“The X Games has always been an open playing field and the qualifications is done on ranking systems,” said Harvey Davis, vice president at ESPN’s Events Management Group. “We work with government agency, the Chinese Extreme Sports Association, to make sure we have the best local athletes compete. So if that’s the case (Shen and other cn athletes barred from participating) that’s something we need to look into, but it’s not something that we’re aware about.”

A feature story on Shen Jian’s pullout is published on the May 13 issue of Sports Illustrated China.

Deputy sports minister Xiao Tian (肖天) lost his temper on Thursday when denying the accusation and addressing the fact that a pair of divers with obviously smaller splash did not win.

“You can’t say it had been fxxking fixed, it’s fxxking fake, just because you lost,” Xiao told a news conference on Thursday, which was widely reported by local media.

“How can you only judge a routine by the size of splash? Even a fxxking amateur can make very little splash if only turns over once. Can you give him gold medal?” he added.

Xiao said investigation by the General Administration of Sports (GAS) had shown the accusation was groundless.

“GAS will definitely not tolerate any match fixing. If it happens, we will even take legal action,” said Xiao. “But it is not true.”

And Xinhua:

Li Hua, head of the National Aquatics Sport Administration Center of China, said here on Wednesday that the match-fixing allegations of the diving competitions during the 11th National Games are “irresponsible and groundless.”

Li, also the executive director of the Diving Competitions Committee of the National Games, denies all the allegations in an official statement sent to the media.

“The rumors said all the gold medals had been fixed before the competitions started. I think these rumors are irresponsible and groundless,” said Li.

“All the rules and process on managing the judges during the competitions of the National Games are very strictly followed. Nobody can fix the results of the competitions during such a fiercely competitive National Games,” he said.

And we’ve been paying taxes to fund them all these years…

Previoulsy:

• Olympic Trampoline Champion Hints At Match-fixing in the National Games
• What’s with China’s National Games?

Links and Sources:

• Reuters: China National Games open under shadow of judging scandal
• Xinhua: Top official: Match-fixing allegations “irresponsible and groundless”
• Beijing Evening News via NetEase: Agitated Xiao Tian used bad words (Chinese)

Unsettled 'bad boy' Mao celebrates his last-minute equalizer to give Shanghai Shenhua a 1:1 draw against Qingdao on May 20.

I was overly optimistic towards the future of Chinese football players. Though this year saw a few of them found jobs outside the country, almost all footballers still find their rights trampled by the country’s backward transfer rules.

As the transfer window reopened by Chinese FA on June 25, 121 players from 29 football clubs have been transfer listed and 13 others are listed as available for loan. A majority of them, if not all, are fringe players who haven’t played first-team football for a long time.

China has 42 incipient professional football clubs. Each team, according to CFA, can only sign three Chinese players during the month-long transfer period till July 24. Of the 134 players on the transfer/loan list, together 93 of them are from Chinese Super League and Jia League, China’s top- and second- tier leagues, a trend of offloading players by these clubs. To most of the players, chances of transferring to teams in the two leagues are, if any, very low.

According to CFA’s transfer rules, there’re option preferences a player can state in his transfer request: Super League, Jia League, Yi League (third-tier) or any of them. Of the 134 players, 112 stated that they’re willing to play for any club, a desperation to continue their careers elsewhere.

“It goes without saying that a lot of the listed players will lose jobs after this season,” Han Xu, former captain of Beijing Guo’an FC, told China Sports Review. Han, 35, now works as the manager of a sportswear store at the Worker’s Stadium. “The transfer rules were a product of the past and look out of place now,” said Han.

To avoid an exodus of good players to rich clubs, transfer rules was established by CFA and was put into use since 1998. Different from FIFA’s current Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players, it stipulates a player needs to wait 30 months after his contract runs out at a club to become a free agent, a period of time spanning across three seasons. Anyone failed to do so will not be able to get registered at any other club. To most of Chinese players like Han, their careers have been tied to a club from the beginning to the retirement.

The transfer rules have given unbridled power to football clubs. Up until now, most of the players like Han have signed their season-long contracts once a year. If a player hands in a transfer request to his club and the club wants to keep him. Chances are he can still be transfer listed, but the sky-high price tag will only keep interested buyers away. Thus the player is saved, or, to put it in another way, caged. No one would be stupid enough to wait three seasons at home to become a free agent. How many three seasons does a player have in his career?

“I hope the transfer rules can be changed,” said Xiao Zhanbo, a 35-year-old veteran from Shanghai Shenhua FC in an interview with a Beijing newspaper. “If it continues like this, there will be less and less players in this country where footballers are already in short supply. It’s catastrophic for Chinese football in the long run.”

Xiao, once a regular player in China set-up, is now pursued by a Liaoning-based club in Jia League, but the RMB 4 million transfer fee that Shanghai asked was way more than enough to scare away the interested buyer.

“There’s no free transfer in China and a lot of players had no choice but to retire at an early age. How pathetic it is!” confessed Xiao, who has reportedly argued with the club management over a sum of unpaid bonuses last season. The tough and tenacious north-easterner seemed to have reached a compromise later with his boss, being listed as available for loan on June 25.

Mao Jianqing, Xiao’s teammate, has been having a hard time recently. The 22-year-old promising winger appears to have a drinking problem, and was punished to train with the reverse team by Zhu Jun, the club owner. Zhu is now looking to offload the “bad boy” by a whopping RMB 8 million.

“Which Chinese club would pay 8 million yuan for a player like me? It can’t be a final price,” Mao told Beijing TV as Guo’an, a CSL team in China’s capital, is said to have interest in signing him. “I hope to play for a big club if things work out well. But the club may not let me go to Beijing if I said too much.”

Mao had a point here. Thanks to the decade-old transfer rules, a Chinese football club can, in effect, decide everything about its players. And if you play bad boy with the big bosses, feel free to count your days on the chopping block.

China’s FA promised to obey FIFA’s transfer regulations early this year over Zhou Haibin’s case, yet clearly they’re not ready to put their words into action in its backyard, taking all the transfers in the country as domestic affairs.

Previously:

• Go West! Chinese Footballers Now Can Transfer, Finally
• Pirelli Signs Three-year Sponsorship Deal with Chinese Super League
• Zheng Zhi to Play in The Premiership?

Links and Sources :

• CFA’s Transfer Rules (in Chinese via Netease)
• Liaoning Daily: CSL transfer window reopens (in Chinese via China Interactive Sports)
• Jianghua Times’s interview with Xiao Zhanbo (in Chinese via Titan Sports)
• Gongti Legends: Guoan Making Run at Mao Jianqing
• BTV’s interview with Mao Jianqing (in Chinese via Sina)

Photo:  Sohu

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Supported by the country’s juguo or whole-nation sports regime, China women’s curling team was established in 2001 and is now coached by Canadian Daniel Rafael, who’s also the head coach of China men’s curling team. The five team members, who together crowned Winter Universiade last month in Harbin, are all from Harbin Institute of Sports(哈尔滨体育学院), and have been receiving full-time training mostly in Canada and European countries, a predominant advantage compared with their fellow competitors.

photo: Netease

Previously:

• Harbin Winter Universiade Cold-shouldered by Chinese
• Chinese Women’s Ice Hockey Team Walking On Thin Ice

Related Read:

National Post:  China’s curling success has Canadian angle

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“I won’t watch any of the games, as I don’t play those sports,” said Liu Hongchao, a 25-year-old Beijinger who plays football in his free time. “No one here even watches Universiade, let alone the winter games.” Liu’s view is probably shared by most sports editors in Chinese media, as we couldn’t find coverage of the Winter Universiade on the front covers of all the sports publications and the Internet portals in the country so far. Winter sports seem too far away from most of Chinese people.

“We’re aware of this situation,” Lan Li, the deputy director of Chinese Winter Sports Federation told China Sports Review. “Objectively speaking, winter sports can only be found in some areas in the country. Its media awareness can’t compare with summer sports right now, and we’re not expecting to make a splash by hosting this Winter Universiade. You really have to do this step by step, cultivating the interests of University students is a good start. Things would go a lot more faster if we have some star players like Yao Ming in Basketball.”

After the opening ceremony last night on Feb 18, China defeated Slovak by 5 – 3 in the first ever women’s ice hockey match in Winter Universiade, as the sport was made a compulsory program this year by the International University Sports Federation. “We didn’t have a dream start and made some mistakes in the first period, but players did fight well later and that’s why we won,” said Paul Strople, head coach of the Chinese women team.

“The 18 ice hockey players are the cream of the crop in China. To tell you the truth, we only have about 50 women ice hockey players in the country. People feel weird when we rejected invitations of some overseas youth tournaments. We just don’t have enough players to send there,” Lan confessed. “We built two stadiums in universities in Harbin this time, hopefully more and more students would be interested in winter sports and start playing some games.”

The 2009 World Winter Universiade takes place from Feb. 18 to 28 in Harbin, the capital city of China’s Heilongjiang Province, with events also scheduled in Maorshan and Yabuli.The games will feature over 82 disciplines encompassed in the following 12 sports: Alpine Skiing, Biathlon, Cross Country Skiing, Curling, Figure Skating, Freestyle Skiing, Ice Hockey, Long Track Speed Skating, Nordic Combined, Short Track Speed Skating, Ski Jumping and Snowboarding. According to the organizer, the total investment is about 3.1 billion RMB, roughly $ 453 million USD.

Previously:

• Chinese Women’s Ice Hockey Team Walking On Thin Ice

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The new CSL season will be kicked off on March 21, with Shanghai Shenhua, Shandong Luneng and Beijing Guoan are among the favorites. While the defending champion Shandon Luneng lost their midfield general Zhou Haibin to PSV Eindhoven, Shanghai Shenhua spent over $ 8 ml USD in the transfer market this winter, snatching Mark Milligan from Newcastle United Jets in Australia’s A-League and another two players from FC MTZ-RIPO, a team in Belarusian Premier League. The Beijing Guo’an FC, or Imperial Guard, received a RMB 20 million yuan (roughly $ 2.92 million USD) boost from Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sport (BMBS) this January, and Li Weimiao, head of the Beijing Municipal Football Administrative Center, the football governing body under BMBS, became vice president of Guo’an Club.

There’s been rumors that the decision makers at General Administration of Sport in China (GASC) has been discussing whether to nationalize Chinese football by getting back clubs’ ownerships. “This could be the first step of GASC’s nationalization plan,” said Nan Fang, a former Beijing Guo’an midfielder to China Sports Review, “If they do it, they’re probably going to cross the river by feeling the stones.” Nan, co-founder and coach of Beijing Langyue Football School, attributes the futility of Chinese football to bad environment, namely fixed games and bribes in the league. “You can’t whiz everything back into the 80s. Things changed.” Aside from help fund a friendly match with world champion club Manchester Utd, BMBS will also help Guo’an develop youth players in the government-funded sports schools. “This would bring more young talents into the pool,” Nan noted. “I think the problem is whether they have enough good coaches there.”

China’s FA is currently in talks with Nike for a sponsorship deal. The sportswear manufacturer is reportedly to have prepared a 10-year-long contract for the clubs, with each club in the 2009 season could get equipments worth of RMB 5 ml and another RMB 1.5 ml fund. A lot money for some, the deal might not sound very riveting to big clubs like Beijing Guo’an, who is currently sponsored by Adidas.

Previously:

• Chinese to Enjoy English Premier League for Free?
• Go West! Chinese Footballers Now Can Transfer, Finally
• China May Juguo Its Professional Football League
  

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This Chinese New Year must have been a magical experience for Zhou Haibin (周海滨), a 23-year-old midfielder, who now finds himself joyfully as a PSV Eindhoven player. Before joining the Dutch side as a free transfer, the Chinese footballer has been playing at Shandong Luneng FC for 10 years.

While Zhou’s move was cheered by some, it definitely left Shandong Luneng FC and Chinese Football Association stunned. The Shandong club, who clumsily appealed to CFA trying to keep the player, was disappointed greatly after the association released a statement last week about their stand. Below’s our translation:

1. Some of CFA’s regulations on transfer and registration are different from FIFA’s. As a member of FIFA, CFA should obey FIFA’s regulations.

2. It’s a good thing for Chinese footballers to play in a high-level league overseas. As an important way to improve the development of Chinese football, we encourage more domestic players to play overseas.

3. CFA will speed up researching, improve its regulations on transfer and registration to better meet the needs of the development of Chinese football.

In China, if a player wants to be transfer-listed, he needs to let the club know in advance even if his contract already runs out. CFA rules state that a club have the ownership of its player up to 30 months from the last time he represented the team, which means Zhou’s ownership would remain at Shandong team untill 2011. 

However, according to FIFA’ Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players released last year, a professional shall only be free to conclude a contract with another club if his contract with his present club has expired or is due to expire within six months, which means a player like Zhou Haibin is entitled to sign for another team. Zhou is not the only one who discovered this new land, though. Feng Xiaoting (冯潇霆), same age as Zhou, received three offers from South Korea’s K-League teams, and completed the move to Daegu FC from Dalian Shide FC last month.

“Ninety percent of free agents in Chinese Super League would follow Feng Xiaoting and Zhou Haibin. Best of them can go to Europe, others can go to South Korea, Japan or the US, and the rest stay home,” wrote Xue Yong, Assistant Professor at Suffolk University and author of Conspicuous Soccer (《炫耀的足球》), in his blog. Mr. Xue half-jokingly titled his comment on the transfer news as Serfs Emancipation in Chinese Football.

Indeed, with AFC introduced its 3 plus 1 rule last year, which states that each team playing in the Asian Champions League is allowed to field four foreign players, one of whom must be from an Asian country, there will definitely be more opportunities for Chinese footballers. Gao Lin (郜林), a regular player in the Chinese setup who now plays at Shanghai Shenhua FC, is reportedly not willing to discuss a new contract with the team, and seeking out opportunities in European leagues. 

Related Reads:

• Xue Yong: Serfs Emancipation in Chinese Football (Chinese)
• AFC: Zhou move sparks ‘Bosman’ talk

Photo: PSV Media

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1. Juguo Rules the Games 

51 golds, 21 silvers and 28 bronzes, a total 100 medals. China for the first time surpassed the US in the number of golds won most golds in an Olympic Games by sticking to its juguo or whole-nation sports regime. People at the General Administration of Sport of China, the governing body of China’s sports, had since been discussing about proliferating their successful juguo model into a more popular sport, football.

2. Lin Miaoke, Blackout and the Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games will be long remembered not only by its pyrotechnics and drum show, but also a girl named Lin Miaoke, who lip-synced when singing ‘Ode to the Motherland.’  “The reason was for the national interest,” said Chen Qigang, the musical director of the opening ceremony in a radio interview. Chen added that the decision of doing lip-syncing was made at the highest level. It goes without saying that whoever knew about this decision before the ceremony were cool about it, even the parents of Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi, the real singer, for whatever reasons that I can’t understand. 

Chen’s so-called ‘national interest’ did scare me, along with the blackout struck our community in Beijing on August 8, 15 minutes after the show began. I saw my neighbors helplessly talking to one other in the alley and guiltily drove to my friend’s. No one told us we were to have a blackout, and no one even came to us to explain what had happened after August 8. A Caijing article later showed that at least 15 pathetic residential communities in Chaoyang District had blackout that night, together contributing to the ‘national interest’ unknowingly. The lip-syncing girl at least had a shot of rejecting doing good to the ‘national interest,’ we didn’t. And that’s only in Beijing, the capital city.

3. Age Of Chinese Women Gymnasts Questioned

Chinese women gymnasts, He Kexin and Jiang Yuyuan, were questioned about their ages after winning golds at the Games. It all began with Stryde’s hack of Chinese websites. All evidence disappeared, ID cards and passports provided. Sorry American girls, you did really well in the games but Chinese did better, if not in the indoor stadium. 

4. Yi Jianlian and CBA Age Scandals

Ages of 22 CBA players were found to have been changed their ages before the new season in the new yearbook issued by CBA, the governing body of Chinese basketball. The association then told media that there’re actually 26 players changed their ages, submitting all the info to FIBA and acting like they had no idea about the situation before. Early this December, a reporter at the Chinese-language version of Sports Illustrated found evidence suggesting that Yi Jianlian, New Jersey Nets forward, is 3 years older than he claimed to be.

5. Horse Gambling in Wuhan

Some 3 million jobs and 100 billion Chinese yuan annual sales sound so enticing that gambling, after nearly 60-year ban in China, reappeared in a different form of packaging. And looks like it will be welcomed even more by the government under the current economic circumstances. 

6. China Bowl Canceled by NFL Again

From Hongda’s withdrawal from Formula One to MLB and NFL’s job cuts, sports industry was so much struck by the slumping economy this winter. China bowl was once again canceled by NFL and New England Patriots closed its office in Beijing.

7. Li Ning Lit the Olympic Flame

Li Ning’s lighting of the Olympic cauldron at the closing ceremony is no doubt the biggest ambush marketing in Olympic history. Although not an official Olympic sponsor, the Chinese sportswear manufacturer must have sold more sneakers thanks to the incomparable publicity it enjoyed at the ceremony. Li Ning penned a contract with Los Angeles Clippers’ Baron Davis this November, a branding move that can be translated as ‘we don’t care much about the North American market.’

8. Fenglu Club Vs. CBA

It’s sad after so much preparation and promises and Fenglu still hadn’t gotten what they wanted, a seat at Chinese Basketball Association, China’s top basketball league. “Geographical balance” might be the weirdest explanation one can ever think of, and unfortunately that’s all CBA could offer for the club.

9. Liu Xiang’s Last Minute Withdrawal         

For millions of Chinese fans, Liu Xiang is simply a source of national pride, the same complex Chinese people had towards China women’s national volleyball team in the 1980s, after claiming five straight major titles. Liu’s last minute withdrawal at the Beijing Games were widely sympathized by fans except for the anger from the scalpers. Liu, 110-meter hurdler, had been covered almost everyday by Chinese media after winning gold in 2004 Athens Olympics. Some said he was hurt not by injury, but the overzealous Chinese media.

10. Chinese Football Out for 2010 World Cup

Chinese football fans could not be downhearted more this year. The national men’s football team was eliminated in the 2010 World Cup Qualifiers this June and lost whatever match they could lose in the rest of the year. Yesterday on December 30, Wei Shaohui, the manager of the men’s team and an official at Chinese Football Association, apologized in a press conference for the poor performance of the team with his theory about potency, “we’ll be potent again when the performance gets better.”

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