Top Chinese football officials questioned over match-fixing

Jan 21, 2010, 9:06 GMT

Beijing - Police have questioned the head of the Chinese Football Association and two other senior officials as part of a growing investigation into match-fixing, state media said on Thursday.

Police investigating a match-fixing scandal in the north-eastern province of Liaoning had summoned for questioning Nan Yong, the head of the CFA since last year, and his deputy, Yang Yimin, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) said.

Police were also investigating Zhang Jianqiang, a former top refeering official currently in charge of Chinese women's football, CCTV said.

The Beijing Times newspaper said police had also questioned Jia Xiuquan, the former coach of leading Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua.

Police had already detained at least 20 people, including several players and officials, over the last two months.

A CCTV news broadcast on Thursday said the investigation showed China's 'strong determination to crack down on corruption and clean up football'.

The crackdown should give fans more 'hope and confidence' in Chinese football, it said.

Late last year, the Ministry of Public Security named four former players, coaches and officials arrested in Liaoning for suspected 'manipulating of domestic soccer matches through commercial bribery'.

The ministry said some of those detained were also suspected of gambling through foreign websites.

The official Xinhua news agency said the 'unprecedented large-scale investigation' found key evidence after the arrest in April of former Liaoning Guangyan manager Wang Xin, who fled back to China from Singapore when police uncovered his match-fixing scheme in the Singaporean football league.

Chinese football has been badly affected by crowd trouble, gambling and match-fixing allegations for at least a decade.

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.

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.

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

Most forms of gambling remain illegal in China, apart from state-run lotteries and small-scale totalizer-system betting on horse racing in some areas.