Ugly side of the beautiful game in China
Updated on 04 July 2010
China has the highest audience figures watching the World Cup - even though the national team is not competing - but corruption is at the heart of the Chinese game, as Lindsey Hilsum discovers.
The footage is a bit fuzzy, and you can't quite see where the ball is but there is clearly something wrong. All but one of the team in red, from the town of Qingdao, are lurking down the defensive end of the pitch while a lone striker is trying to kick the ball into their own goal. The goalkeeper saves it, but a few minutes later, lets a similar shot through.
The crowd starts shouting: "Qingdao is faking the game!"
This amateur footage was part of the evidence for a series of arrests in China earlier this year, in the run up to the World Cup.
Not such a "beautiful" game
The Chinese are as football crazy as anyone else, and Fifa says the TV audience for the World Cup in China is the biggest of all, but fans scarcely bother with the Chinese Super League. They know that nearly all the matches are fixed, because football in China isn't "the beautiful game" but a vehicle for illegal gambling.
Police arrested about 20 managers, referees and players, some of whom face up to 10 years in prison. They were amazingly frank in interviews on Chinese state television.
Qingdao player and assistant coach, Du Bin, described how the team boss, Du Yun Qi, phoned from the stands and told him they must lose three-nil to the team from Sichuan.
"I had no other way of changing the score so I told my team to kick the ball into our own goal. I was desperate. I didn’t dare to disobey the order of the boss. Other players also knew," said Du Bin. "If we disobey, we’d lose our salary or bonus. We could even be kicked out of the team."
Du Yun Qi had nearly £8000 on a bet that his team would lose three-nil. His explanation when interviewed?
"We fix matches all the time. I thought nobody watched the game any way and it wasn’t aired on TV either. They were just games among ourselves."
Black whistles or gold?
So common is the practice, fans have two categories for referees: "black whistles" are corrupt, "golden whistles" are clean.
Sports journalist Li Cheng Peng, who exposed the scandal, received death threats as a result. When signing books, someone slipped a note into his hand, which read: “Don’t get above yourself. Watch out. I’ll be waiting for you.”
He says the government has cracked down on corruption in football, because of demand from the fans and because it was bringing shame on the nation, but arresting a few people won’t bring real change.
"China's football is a mirror reflecting Chinese society," he said. "All the bribery, corruption, and evil are reflected in China’s football which involves China’s government, business and mafia. China’s football is a slice of Chinese society.”
Don't make fun of Chinese football
For about six months now, Chinese media has been allowed to report corruption in football – the government wanted a warning signal sent out. But now it seems, they're backing off. In mid June, the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party put out a censorship instruction to all Chinese media: "It is not allowed to use the pretext of reporting on the World Cup to make fun of Chinese football."
The last head of the Chinese Super League described corruption as a cancer in Chinese football. A few days later, he was arrested for bribery. His successor says his aim is to get a Chinese team into the World Cup next time. But few fans think he has much chance, as corruption is so deeply embedded in the Chinese game.
