Police in China have started a crackdown on corruption and match fixing. Police took in for questioning Nan Yong, the head of the country’s football federation; Yan Yimin, a vice-president of the football body; and Zhiang Jianqiang, head of the referees’ committee. It is difficult to fix matches without the compliance of referees. In the last three months at least 21 officials, players and club officials have been arrested on allegations of match fixing, or of gambling in matches which is illegal in China.
Police in China have started a crackdown on corruption and match fixing. Police took in for questioning Nan Yong, the head of the country’s football federation; Yan Yimin, a vice-president of the football body; and Zhiang Jianqiang, head of the referees’ committee. It is difficult to fix matches without the compliance of referees. In the last three months at least 21 officials, players and club officials have been arrested on allegations of match fixing, or of gambling in matches which is illegal in China. Alongside table tennis and basketball, football is one of the most popular sports in China. But the country is punching well below its weight in international rankings. It did not come close to qualifying for this year’s World Cup finals in South Africa and is ranked 93rd in the world behind the likes of Iceland and Haiti.
Attendances at matches have fallen in the domestic league which has been tarnished by complaints about the ‘black whistles’ – a reference to corrupt and biased referees. China’s president, Hu Jintao, has let it known that he is ‘very concerned’ about the state of the game, which helps to explain the crackdown by the Ministry of Public Security. Ren Jie, the head of the China Anti-Football Gambling Alliance, a group set up to expose corruption in the game, said the match fixing was a result of the huge illegal gambling rings that have been established around the sport.