When Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger visited Beijing last summer, there was one question in his mind. At a press conference, he asked the moderator, Huang Jianxiang, a well-known local football commentator, why China, with so many people, lacked a first-rate football team.

The question was laughed off by the commentator, who replied that it was because “We never had a coach like you.”

But coaching isn’t the core problem in Chinese football. The recent crackdown on match-fixing and underground gambling tells one that the beautiful game has rotten to the core in China.

In the past three months, more than 100 players, club owners and officials have been entangled in the investigation and last week both Nan Yong, vice president of the Chinese Football Association (FA) and Yang Yimin, a senior official in both the FA and the Asian Football Confederation, along with Zhang Jianqiang, FA’s head of referees, were detained by the police for interrogation.

Without waiting for formal charges, the three, who had each served in the FA for over 18 years, were soon ousted by the General Administration of Sport (GAS), the top governing body of sports in the country.

The news came as little surprise to many Chinese sports journalists. Instead of assuming their role as watchdogs by exposing wrongdoing in the sporting industry, they are now reveling in their knowledge of match-fixing scandals.

They’re making appearances in talk shows or shilling new books, enlightening the public about the severity of the scandals and how there’re still “big fishes” out there to be caught. But rarely did these stories that they supposedly knew all along make the headlines of their papers or TV programs.

At the end of 2007, CCTV-5, China’s main sports channel, did a program evaluating the work done by Xie Yalong, then FA president. After the program gave Xie low marks, the FA began snubbing interview requests from journalists representing the channel. The message from officials couldn’t have been clearer, and the media, eager to keep their access, understood it well.

Besides media indifference, the absence of law enforcement and tacit condoning of corruption by GAS are all causes of the ignominious practices in football. Evidence suggests that bribery and match-fixing prevail in the Chinese sporting world.

The current investigation in football was made possible only after top government officials decided that they wanted to “raise the level of Chinese football.” What is happening in football industry could well mirror other aspects of Chinese sport.

Last year, after Ma Yanping, an acclaimed diving coach, exposed that the finals of diving competition of last year’s 11th National Games had been rigged by Zhou Jihong, head of China’s national diving team and deputy director of the National Aquatics Sport Administration Center, officials from GAS soon came into Zhou’s defense. The police were nowhere to be seen.

Asked about the scandal by a reporter, Zhou, who helped China get 7 out of 8 gold medals with her strikingly young-looking diving team at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, retorted, “Which media organization do you work for?”

When addressing the same topic, Xiao Tian, deputy director of GAS said at a press conference that “you can’t say it had been fucking fixed, it’s fucking fake, just because you lost.”

In a post-match interview at the 11th National Games, He Wenna, China’s first trampoline Olympic champion, said that she knew who would win the finals long ago. There was no follow-up investigation and He was later criticized at a GAS meeting for her words.

The same happened at the judo, basketball and football matches of the National Games.

More recently, in the run-up to 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games and Asian Para Games, members of the Guangzhou People’s Congress Standing Committee complained about a lack of information from the organizing committee on the sources and destinations of the funds for the two Games.

It’s reported that the Games cost 200 billion yuan ($29.28 billion) but no official figures have been released so far. Some worry that the lack of information on such a scale of government spending has already led to waste and embezzlement of taxpayers’ money.

It’s interesting to see how this heavy-handed investigation in football will play out, as the results might even shock those who started it.

Sport has long been regarded as a source of national pride in China. But when pride conflicts with laws and ethics and you hesitate, even for a moment, the battle against corruption is already lost.

Related reading:

• CS Moniter: Is China finally tackling its soccer corruption scourge?
• South China Morning Post: Another day, another raft of soccer scandals (subscription req’ed)
• Gongti Legends: Is it all worth it?
• Global Times: Fair play is sadly missing from Chinese sporting world

In the middle of a Chengdu Blades game

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Photo: Jing

Lee Jang-Soo, Beijing Guoan's former head coach

Beijing Guo’an FC (北京国安) ends their 16-year title wait today by winning 4-0 against Hangzhou Greentown (杭州绿城) in Chinese Super League. October 30th is no doubt the biggest day in the capital club’s history, but one man’s name becomes a taboo in their post-match celebration: Lee Jang-Soo (李章洙), the club’s former South Korean head coach.

From a football fan and a bystander’s point of view, Mr.Lee simply transformed the way Guo’an played since he took the hot seat by the end of 2006.  The players, albeit some of them considered young in Chinese football, looked more confident than ever on the pitch under Lee’s coaching, especially in their away games. The South Korean toughened up the team with new blood like Huang Bowen, Yang Hao, Zhang Xinxin and Zhu Yifan, just to name a few. Huang, Yang and Zhang all capped for Chinese national team since this year.

Mr.Lee was sacked by the club earlier on September 16th, after a 0-2 defeat to Changchun Yatai, though Guoan sitting still in the 2nd place in the league.

“We don’t really have any reason to fire him if the club’s sitting at the top, and he wouldn’t be convinced by our decision that way. And now we’re in the 2nd place and the club hasn’t been playing very good with stronger teams.” Luo Ning (罗宁), Beijing Guoan’s chairman of the board, told press two days after the club made the decision. Mr.Luo repeatedly talked in press whether or not to end the head coach’s contract before that.

Lee Jang-Soo first came to China in 1998 to coach Chongqing Lifan. He benched Gao Feng (高峰), a regular player in Chinese national team at the time for his addiction in alcohol. The South Korean was soon nicknamed “iron coach” by Chinese media, as he focuses very much on discipline and professionalism in team management.

In 2000, Chongqing Lifan defeated Beijing Guoan 4-2 in two-round finals to win the  Chinese FA Cup, the club’s first and only trophy until now. The Chongqing municipal government granted honorary citizenship to the head coach. Lee signed for Qingdao by the end of 2001, and help the team lift the FA cup in 2002, the only championship in the club’s history. The coach was once again given honorary citizenship and this time was by Qingdao government.

Former Guoan head coach Lee Jang-Soo (Right 1)

Lee Jang-Soo returned to China to coach Beijing Guoan after three years in his motherland with Chunnum Dragons and FC Seoul. Under Lee’s coaching, Beijing ranked runner-up in Chinese Super League in 2007, a result on par with the club’s best record in 1995.

Mr. Lee’s relationship with Guoan grew worse earlier this year, mainly for not using particular players favored by the management. The coach complained to the media this July for a lack of arrangement in fixtures between CSL and the Barclays Asia Trophy, part of the program of the 1st Beijing International Football Festival that supported by Beijing Sports Bureau under the municipal government.

Back to CSL, Shandong Luneng lost 0-1 to Chengdu in Jinan, but enough to seal a berth in next year’s Asian Champions League by beating Shanghai Shenhua in goal difference. Shanghai beat Changsha Ginde 2-1. Title competitors Henan Construction and Changchun Yatai also booked their places.

Hangzhou Greentown and Chongqing Lifan relegated to Jia League. Liaoning returned to CSL together with the People’s Liberation Army team that based in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province.

Links and Sources:

• Goal: Beijing Guoan Win First Super League Title In Style
• ESPN Soccernet: Beijing Guoan win Chinese Super League for 1st time
• Jinghua Times via NetEase: Guoan wanted to sack Lee long ago, but not enough excuse (Chinese)
• Beijing Youth Daily via Xinhua:  Lee: Somebody doesn’t understand football (Chinese)

Photo: Xinhua

Eight players from Chinese Super League side Chongqing Lifan have been diagnosed with Influenza A/H1N1, the Chongqing Heath Bureau (CHB) said on Thursday.

The club reported to the CFA again after all eight cases had been confirmed and requested their match next Wednesday to be called off. And Chen said they are still waiting for the reply from the CFA .

By Monday, all 31 provinces and municipalities on the Chinese mainland had reported A/H1N1 flu cases, bringing the total to 5,592.

Chongqing Lifan is sitting at the bottom of the Chinese Super League. This July, the club signed 36-year-old Brazilian forward Aílton, who won German Footballer of the Year as the first foreigner in 2004.

Links and Sources:

• Xinhua via CRI: 8 Chinese Footballers Diagnosed with A/H1N1 Flu
• Reuters: Brazilian striker Ailton joins China’s Chongqing

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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Internazionale players wearing "Pirelli" in Chinese on their jerseys

Italian tyre maker Pirelli becomes the new CSL title sponsor this Friday after signing a three-year sponsorship deal with Chinese Football Association. “We’re satisfied with Pirelli’s offer and their brand will help boost CSL’s image,” said Zhang Lu, vice president of Beijing Guo’an club, who helped facilitate the deal. The deal was reportedly worth 5 million euros (US $ 6.78 million) yearly but details remain undisclosed by the two parties.

Pirelli is the primary sponsor of the Italian football club Internazionale, or Inter Milan. The company launched a plant in China’s Shandong province in 2005 for the production of radial truck tyres. Since then, Inter players had begun to wear jerseys with “倍耐力” – Pirelli’s name in mandarin Chinese – four times each season to better market the Italian brand. “The world, as we know, is suffering an economic crisis but we are very optimistic about China’s situation,” said Giuseppe Cattaneo, CEO at Pirelli Tyre China Co. Ltd.

Chinese Super League is back on CCTV this year, after a three-match ban since last November for on-field fighting and club withdrawals caused by FA’s poor management. The league suffered greatly all these years by match-fixing, bribing and underground gambling. CFA told press early this month that judiciary professionals will join its regulatory bureau to help clean up cancers in the league.

The new 2009 seasonn of CSL will begin from today on March 21.

Photo: inter.it

Previously:

• Horse Lottery, Gambling and Chinese Football
• Chinese Super League Unbanned by CCTV
• Beijing to Stage International Football Festival This Summer

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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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