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

The scope of the multi-billion-dollar project is staggering. It occupies 80sq km of forest and shrubland – an area the size of Hong Kong island – in north-east Hainan, the island province long touted as China’s answer to Hawaii. Once completed, it will feature 22 golf courses, at a stroke doubling the number on Hainan today. It’s been in the works since 2006 and for more than two years, thousands of workers have been clearing trees, moving soil, building greens, fairways, clubhouses and luxury hotels.

Shanghai-based writer Dan Washburn writes for the Financial Times Weekend Magazine about golf’s secret boom in Hainan island, go here to read the fascinating story (h/t  Shanghaiist). Dan, the man behind Par for China blog, is currently researching a book about the development of golf in China.

Today’s South China Morning Post looks at China’s decision to boost tourism in Hainan, with sports facilities of course:

To attract more tourists, tropical tourism facilities such as water sports and scuba diving will be built. A cruise harbour has been proposed to allow cruises from around the world to dock. Foreign cruise companies would be allowed to set up offices on the island. And as ambitious as it can get, the government said it also planned to promote “red” tourism – promoting communist history – and ethnic tourism.International events such as yachting, golfing and cycling are also mentioned in the document.

The government said it would explore sports lotteries, including those that apply to international games – immediately sparking speculation in the mainland media that Hainan could be China’s testing ground for a gaming industry.

The Hainan island is not the first in China to open ‘lottery’ business, and sure will not be the last.

Previously:

• Horse Lottery, Gambling and Chinese Football

Links and Sources:

• FT Weekend Magazine: Golf’s secret boom in Hainan, China
• SCMP: Hainan set on a course to tourism paradise (subscription req’ed)

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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Some of our fellow countrymen never hated the word ‘lottery’ that much until BOCOG employed it in their ticket sales early this year. It may be convenient for most visitors outside of China to get their tickets from companies like CoSport or Aristeia, however, things are a lot more complicated when you’re on the inside. We’re happy to see that a new and better kind of lottery emerged last Saturday on Nov.29 in Wuhan, China’s Hubei Province, which, as Chinese media put it, is horse lottery or horse betting.

No, not gambling. It’s been almost a week and we haven’t heard that word from any of the mouthpieces here. CCTV, China’s main national television broadcaster, didn’t even mention betting at all in its sports channel when reporting the 6th China Wuhan International Horse Racing Festival (第六届中国武汉国际赛马节).

Held at Orient Lucky City racecourse, the horse races last week was a trail run. And will be held twice a week when it begins officially . Qin Zunwen, an economist at Hubei Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, told Xinhua that once a nationwide betting network is set up, the industry could create 3 million jobs and annual lottery sales could reach a staggering RMB 100 billion (roughly $ 14.53 bl USD), yielding RMB 40 billion (roughly $ 5.81 bl USD) in tax revenue annually. This must sound like top dollar to the local government especially under the current economic conditions.

“It’s a form of gambling – that is quite clear. All they have done is change the packaging,” said Justin Nicolson, owner and director at Running-Ball, a Singapore-based sports information provider to the casino and gambling industry. “The Chinese government would love to get a slice of the action without opening it up to outsiders, and thus by calling it a lottery and making it look like a lottery, it is one step removed from gambling in the eyes of those who are against it.” Justin’s correct. Gambling, once very popular in the middle kingdom, were banned along with prostitution by Mao Zedong since the establishment of the PRC in 1949. That said, with Internet, it’s a lot easier these days for people who have a zest for it. And Chinese bettors, as elsewhere in the world, do underground gambling as well.

According to Korean Times, several footballers in K3 League, an amateur football competition in South Korea, are recently involved in score manipulation, and people behind this happen to be some Chinese gamblers. Justin said the news didn’t surprise him, “Lower paid, lower league football players are potentially more susceptible to being bribed.” Score manipulations or match-fixing are, too, said to have long existed in Chinese Super League, the top football competition, and the 2nd division of Chinese football. Gong Jianping (龚建平), a Chinese FIFA international referee, was sentenced to ten years in prison by Beijing Court in 2003 for taking bribes for at least 9 times of more than RMB 380,000 (roughly $ 46,000 USD). Zhang Shuai, a first team player in Beijing Guo’an Football Club and a regular player in the Chinese setup, was also linked in a fixed-match case this summer. Zhang, however, wasn’t bothered by any legal charges. He retired from football in November to prove his innocence or some other unfathomable reasons.

Below are some of Justin’s suggestions to Chinese football:

CSR: Columbia football was once pretty much ruined by football gambling. In comparison, European football remain unaffected even there’re so many people placing their bets on the teams. What, in your opinion, are the key reasons that European football can stay clean and achieve greater results through the years?

Justin: Football and any other sport where betting is available is open to corruption and the manipulation of the outcome. Certain cultures are more open to corruption than others but the main factor is money. These days, most European footballers earn enough not to even comtemplate taking the risk of accepting a bribe as they have far too much to lose. However, that is not to say that it doesn’t take place. There have been many incidences of ‘fixed games’, particularly in Eastern Europe in such countries as Georgia, Serbia and Latvia.

CSR: What do you think the Chinese government should do to avoid football match manipulations by the gamblers?

Justin: Impose very strict penalties on players who are found to be involved in match fixing. Singapore being a case in point, where players can receive life bans and jail terms. These are 2 rare and high profile cases in Singapore where players have been found to be involved in match fixing: case A, case B

By contrast, recent match fixing cases in Italy have been met with relatively lenient penalties for those involved. Investigations into abnormal betting patterns and players placing bets on Italian games, often become complicated, long drawn out affairs. Past investigations have seen tens of players accused, but few dealt with satisfactorily. The overwhelming feeling is that such outcomes neither punish those involved, or deter others from committing similar crimes in future.

Links and Sources:

• Beijing Times: Gong Jianping charged for taking bribes (Chinese)
• Korea Times: Sports players involved in score manipulation
• Times of India: China allows horse race gambling 60 years after Mao banned it

photo: lecercle

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