State TV drops live coverage of scandal-hit China league

By Bill Smith Nov 18, 2008, 8:00 GMT

Beijing - State-run China Central Television, the country's main national broadcaster, has suspended its live coverage of the Chinese Super League after the latest in a series of scandals to hit the ailing league, reports said on Tuesday.

A mass brawl at the end of last Wednesday's match between Beijing Guo'an and Tianjin Kangshifu was apparently the final straw for CCTV.

'The present situation of Chinese football has hurt everybody,' Jiang Heping, the controller of sports channel CCTV-5, told the popular Titan Sports newspaper.

Jiang said CCTV made the decision to drop coverage to be 'responsible to the country and to people.'

'There is so much negative news for every round of games,' he was quoted as saying.

'Is there any 'professional' style in such league matches?,' he said.

'Some players lack basic professional ethics,' Jiang said. 'Their behaviour is embarrassing for TV audiences and more embarrassing for football, the noble profession.'

But Jiang said the move was only a temporary one and did not mean it would have no live coverage next year.

'We whole-heartedly hope the Chinese Super League will have a really good change,' he said.

This year's league has only two rounds remaining before the end of the season.

A growing list of scandals has rocked Chinese football in recent years, including corrupt refereeing, match-fixing, illegal betting, violence on and off the field, and drug use.

The league was also rocked by the withdrawal last month of the Wuhan Guanggu club in protest against the suspension of one of its players.

The fighting between players and coaches of the Beijing and Tianjin teams came at the end of a tense match last week in Beijing's Fengtai Stadium, with both teams hoping to qualify for the Asian Champions' League.

The match was officiated by a Saudi referee, in keeping with the policy since 2006 of trying to ensure fairness by using referees from other nations in the Asian Football Confederation.

Guo'an fans blocked exits and surrounded the Tianjin team bus, forcing armed police to intervene, state media said.

Chinese football has been badly affected by crowd trouble, gambling and match-fixing allegations since around 2000.

Worries over match-fixing by illegal gambling syndicates prompted the Chinese Football Association to use Italian and English matches in a 'football pool' lottery launched in October 2001.

In the highest-profile case, in 2003 a Beijing court sentenced former international football referee Gong Jianping to 10 years in prison after convicting him of accepting at least 370,000 yuan (54,000 dollars) in bribes.

The court said Gong had accepted bribes at least nine times for agreeing to influence results of Chinese first and second division matches in 2000 and 2001.

Several other referees and at least one former CFA official were implicated in the scandal.

Allegations of corruption in Chinese football have driven fans away and many of those who continue to go to matches often chant 'black whistle' every time a referee makes a dubious decision in favour of an opposing team.

The failure of the national team to qualify for the 2006 World Cup and its elimination from qualification for the 2010 edition as well have only added to the fans' woes.

Last week, Beijing Guo'an again raised the suspicion of match-fixing when it defended a decision to ban former Chinese international defender Zhang Shuai for 'questionable behaviour on and off the field', Titan Sports reported.

Zhang was 'spending beyond his means' and unable to account for how he bought a car costing 1 million yuan (147,000 dollars) and property worth more than 10 million yuan (1.47 million dollars), the newspaper said.

'We know very well how much we pay him every month,' it quoted a Guo'an official as saying.

'How come he's able to buy and maintain such an expensive car,' the unidentified official said.

Questions were raised after Zhang scored an own goal against Shanghai Shenhua in June. He was banished to the Guo'an reserves but refused to play for them.

Zhang denied any wrongdoing and announced his retirement from football, reports said.

He had already gained notoriety by testing positive for the banned stimulant ephedrine in 2003, becoming the first Chinese player to be caught doping.

The new allegations of match-fixing would not surprise Chi Shangbin, the sacked coach of Shenzhen Jianlibao, who in 2005 claimed that his former players, some of whom were Chinese internationals, had 'the power to control a match' and were 'behaving like gangsters.'