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Monday, 16 November 2009
Soccer officials held in graft crackdown
Several high-profile soccer officials have been snared in a crackdown on underground gambling, amid growing frustrations at the highest level of the government at the ugly state of the “beautiful game” on the mainland.
Several high-profile soccer officials have been snared in a crackdown on underground gambling, amid growing frustrations at the highest level of the government at the ugly state of the “beautiful game” on the mainland.
Titan Sports, a sporting tabloid, reported that Yang Xu, former secretary general of Guangzhou Football Association and general manager of the city’s Super League side, currently known as Guangzhou Pharmaceutical, was detained last month in Liaoning.
Also held was his deputy, Wu Xiaodong.
While China has improved in the sporting arena and topped the medal table at last year’s Beijing Olympics, soccer has proven the exception.
The performances of the national team have lurched from bad to worse, and the league has struggled to shake off the cloud of match fixing and corrupt referees - known as “black whistles”.
It has become such an embarrassment that in the past month President Hu Jintao, Vice-President Xi Jinping and State Councillor Liu Yandong have called for greater efforts to improve standards in the sport.
According to Titan Sports, the arrests of Yang and Wu were likely to be the tip of the iceberg.
Sources said the Ministry of Public Security had co-ordinated with police authorities across the country to launch a campaign against gambling. The paper said police collected evidence to prove some detained suspects not only gambled on domestic games, but also tried to influence results by bribing players.
Gambling is illegal on the mainland. Retired sports minister Yuan Weimin has said that he knew many games were fixed but he had no authority to intervene.
“It does not take a professional to tell there were apparent frauds in the games ... but we just didn’t have the authority to detain and interrogate anyone involved,” Yuan told Southern Metropolis Weekly last month.
That could change with the Public Security Bureau’s involvement.
According to Titan Sports, police had collected evidence, including computers used for betting, bank accounts and a long list of officials and players.
Dozens of soccer insiders were questioned and ordered to co-operate with the investigation.
The crackdown is the biggest police intervention into the sport to date. In the past decade, there has been sporadic co-operation between the Chinese Football Association and police and it has yielded few meaningful results.
In 1999, Shenyang’s top-flight team scored two goals against Chongqing in the final two minutes of their final game of the season to avoid relegation. The CFA and police investigated for months, and concluded that both teams had played “passively”. Neither team received substantial punishment.
In 2001, Chengdu beat a team from Mianyang 11-2 - exactly the goal difference they required to secure promotion. The CFA found nothing untoward.
The impotence of the soccer authorities reached a low in 2003 when a Hangzhou club manager came forward with a list of seven referees he had personally bribed. But six were set free based on a “lack of sufficient evidence”.
A Beijing-based sports writer who has followed Chinese soccer for a decade said he was withholding judgment. “Match fixing is a bit like corruption among officials - everyone knows it is there, but no one knows how to stamp it out,” said the writer, who is not authorised to speak to other media.
“If this investigation is just like a normal crackdown and doesn’t result in new regulations or laws, I cannot see any major improvements.”
1 comment:
Soccer officials held in graft crackdown
Beijing moves to clean up tarnished game
Al Guo
05 November 2009
Several high-profile soccer officials have been snared in a crackdown on underground gambling, amid growing frustrations at the highest level of the government at the ugly state of the “beautiful game” on the mainland.
Titan Sports, a sporting tabloid, reported that Yang Xu, former secretary general of Guangzhou Football Association and general manager of the city’s Super League side, currently known as Guangzhou Pharmaceutical, was detained last month in Liaoning.
Also held was his deputy, Wu Xiaodong.
While China has improved in the sporting arena and topped the medal table at last year’s Beijing Olympics, soccer has proven the exception.
The performances of the national team have lurched from bad to worse, and the league has struggled to shake off the cloud of match fixing and corrupt referees - known as “black whistles”.
It has become such an embarrassment that in the past month President Hu Jintao, Vice-President Xi Jinping and State Councillor Liu Yandong have called for greater efforts to improve standards in the sport.
According to Titan Sports, the arrests of Yang and Wu were likely to be the tip of the iceberg.
Sources said the Ministry of Public Security had co-ordinated with police authorities across the country to launch a campaign against gambling. The paper said police collected evidence to prove some detained suspects not only gambled on domestic games, but also tried to influence results by bribing players.
Gambling is illegal on the mainland. Retired sports minister Yuan Weimin has said that he knew many games were fixed but he had no authority to intervene.
“It does not take a professional to tell there were apparent frauds in the games ... but we just didn’t have the authority to detain and interrogate anyone involved,” Yuan told Southern Metropolis Weekly last month.
That could change with the Public Security Bureau’s involvement.
According to Titan Sports, police had collected evidence, including computers used for betting, bank accounts and a long list of officials and players.
Dozens of soccer insiders were questioned and ordered to co-operate with the investigation.
The crackdown is the biggest police intervention into the sport to date. In the past decade, there has been sporadic co-operation between the Chinese Football Association and police and it has yielded few meaningful results.
In 1999, Shenyang’s top-flight team scored two goals against Chongqing in the final two minutes of their final game of the season to avoid relegation. The CFA and police investigated for months, and concluded that both teams had played “passively”. Neither team received substantial punishment.
In 2001, Chengdu beat a team from Mianyang 11-2 - exactly the goal difference they required to secure promotion. The CFA found nothing untoward.
The impotence of the soccer authorities reached a low in 2003 when a Hangzhou club manager came forward with a list of seven referees he had personally bribed. But six were set free based on a “lack of sufficient evidence”.
A Beijing-based sports writer who has followed Chinese soccer for a decade said he was withholding judgment. “Match fixing is a bit like corruption among officials - everyone knows it is there, but no one knows how to stamp it out,” said the writer, who is not authorised to speak to other media.
“If this investigation is just like a normal crackdown and doesn’t result in new regulations or laws, I cannot see any major improvements.”
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