Chinese football needs root-and-branch reforms
- Source: Global Times
- [22:29 February 04 2010]
- Comments
Illustration: Liu Rui
By Gavin Mowat
Hull City's manager Gianfranco Zola said when he took his side to Beijing for a friendly tournament that the Chinese Super League will one day compete with the English Premiership. In light of recent events, that day seems further away than ever before.
Regular violence and poor performances on the pitch have marred the beautiful game in China in recent times.
Now, fresh accusations of gambling, match-fixing and high-profile arrests have added to the mire of a game that was already struggling in China.
China's national team has only ever made it to the World Cup Finals on one occasion in 2002, and the team has already failed to qualify for the 2010 tournament in South Africa. The national side is seen by many as a national embarrassment, and that was before recent events.
The nation's footballers are often regarded as troublemaking playboys, while many coaches, players and club officials at the top of the game have now been exposed as cheating gamblers who fix matches for their own profit. So can Chinese football survive this scandal?
Domestic football's image problem in China has prompted more youngsters to turn their backs on the sport, with recruitment of kids to professional academies falling from 650,000 per year to an unprecedented low of just 20,000.
The recent crackdown on football's corrupt underbelly has done nothing but reinforce this growing trend.
This scandal will surely set back the Chinese game another few years, considering it has occurred at a time when the game here is still developing and is by no means near maturity. Football in this country is at a fragile stage of development and needs to be protected and nurtured before it can reach its potential.
Punishing individuals is one sure way to give the Chinese game a makeover, but if it's a full face-lift that you're after, maybe punishing whole clubs is the answer.
Back in 2006, the mighty and very successful Italian league was plunged into turmoil by a similar scandal. High-profile clubs had illegally appointed favored referees to oversee matches and heads rolled as a result.
The then Serie A Champions, Juventus were unceremoniously relegated to Serie B, docked 9 points, stripped of the 2005 and 2006 Serie A titles, barred from playing in the 2006-07 Champions League and forced to play three home games behind closed doors.
Other high-profile clubs like AC Milan, Lazio and Fiorentina were punished to a lesser degree. Individual culprits were subject to sentences ranging from 80,000 euro ($111,224) fines to a five-year ban from football and two years in jail.
Clearly the Italian game has been relatively quick in its recovery; with AC Milan clinching the Champions League title in 2007 and the national team currently fourth in the FIFA rankings.
But the same sturdy foundations of the Italian league are lacking in the Chinese game.
If the individuals and clubs involved in this scandal are punished in a similar manner to those in Italy, one wonders what sort of league will raise form the ashes, if any at all.
It looks like this scandal will initially hurt the game in China whatever the punishment. Rooting out corrupt veterans and disciplining clubs and officials alike will serve to discourage talented youngsters from entering the profession. But in the long run it may be a blessing in disguise.
If Chinese football had continued on its current path, you can bet your life it would never be able to compete with the English Premiership, and clubs like Hull City could continue to milk large swathes of unsatisfied Chinese football fans with guest appearances in the Far East.
