The former chief of China’s national football association, Chen Xuyuan, has been sentenced to life in prison for accepting bribes, state media reported on Tuesday, after one of the biggest anti-corruption probes in the sport in years. The severe sentence for Chen, 67, concludes an inquiry into high-level football officials in China in a sport that has long grappled with corruption, which fans have blamed for the perpetual under performance of the national team. In the last episode of a four-part documentary series on corruption aired on national television in…
Tag: Football
Lionel Messi: fans refunded in Hong Kong after anger over Tokyo appearance
The organiser of Inter Miami’s ill-fated match in Hong Kong, in which star player Lionel Messi failed to appear, said it would offer refunds of 50%, after the Hong Kong government as well as football fans harshly criticised the event. The refunds will cost Tatler Asia, a magazine and lifestyle brand, $56m HKD (£5.7m). Messi’s failure to play in the much-hyped friendly match on Sunday, because of a groin injury, sparked outrage in Hong Kong, with fans booing the 36-year-old player for not coming on to the pitch. The controversy…
Lionel Messi: outcry in China and Hong Kong after star returns from injury in time for Japan match
Chinese state media, Hong Kong politicians and fans have cried foul after Lionel Messi played in a match in Japan, just days after he stayed on the bench for a highly-anticipated match in Hong Kong. Many in Hong Kong were dismayed on Sunday when the 36-year-old Argentinian player did not come on to the field during a much-hyped Inter Miami fixture to a sell-out crowd with fans demanding answers and a refund. Miami’s head coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino said Messi was deemed unfit to play in Sunday’s match in the…
Hong Kong beat China at football for first time in 29 years
Hong Kong have beaten China for the first time in 29 years in a friendly football match in Abu Dhabi. Hong Kong’s 2-1 victory over China comes as the former British colony prepares to participate in the Asian Cup for the first time since 1968, when the territory was still under British rule. Hong Kong was passed over from British to Chinese rule in 1997 and is now a “special administrative region” of the People’s Republic of China. But under the terms of the handover agreement, the territory is permitted…
Why no concern at prisoners being paid just 50p an hour to work? | Brief letters
Reading another article about Chinese prisoners possibly making products for sale in the UK (Chinese prisoner’s ID card apparently found in lining of Regatta coat, 1 December), I wonder why there is no concern that British prisoners are forced to work for UK companies for about 50p an hour? This work provides no training for release and serves only to enrich private prison contractors.David AdamsDarlington, County Durham How appropriate that on the day you note that Katherine Rundell, the author of The Golden Mole, has won the Waterstones book award…
Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami call off China tour
Lionel Messi won’t be playing in China this month after all. Inter Miami announced Wednesday that its planned trip to China for a pair of exhibition matches has been called off. The team announced the trip last month, with a pair of games originally scheduled for 5 November and 8 November. It would have been at least the eighth time that Messi – the World Cup champion for Argentina and now an eight-time Ballon d’Or winner, after receiving the annual award yet again earlier this week – played in China,…
Saudi Arabia’s big-spending league seeks to avoid China’s failed gamble
Saudi Arabia is the new China. “The system of buying the players that almost ended their career is not the system that develops football,” said Uefa’s chief executive Aleksander Ceferin recently. “It was a similar mistake in China …” When Oscar left Chelsea in December 2016 in a transfer window during which Chinese Super League clubs spent more than £300m, then Blues manager Antonio Conte warned of the Chinese danger. Other stars such as Carlos Tevez, Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka also moved east. It ended badly with bankruptcies, corruption…
TV tonight: Taiwan’s battle with China to hold on to independence
Inside Taiwan: Standing Up to China 9pm, BBC Two Jane Corbin’s densely packed documentary investigates the precarious situation in Taiwan. President Xi Jinping’s government is accused of misinformation in its campaign to reunify the island with China, while Taiwan’s first female head of state, Tsai Ing-wen – overwhelmingly voted for by young people – faces a big battle to retain independence. Interviewees include a pro-Beijing campaigner and former gang leader, who shares footage of his party members battling pro-independence students. Hollie Richardson Dragons’ Den 8pm, BBC One How do you…
Chinese football stars and officials held in Xi’s corruption crackdown
Sergio Agüero may be one of the greatest strikers of his generation, but he won an even rarer accolade in 2015, when he became the first – and last – Premier League footballer to take a selfie with Xi Jinping, China’s football-loving leader. The photo, taken at Manchester City’s stadium – with then prime minister David Cameron – comes from an era when Xi was fostering warm relations with the UK and pushing China to become a world football superpower by 2050, both ambitions that seem distant possibilities today. In…
China’s football crisis: what happened next after Covid struck?
There cannot be many, if any, leagues that have been affected by the pandemic as much as the Chinese Super League. It was the first to deal with Covid-19 and, with China keeping stringent restrictions on daily life longer than elsewhere, the last to operate in tightly controlled conditions. With Beijing’s so-called zero-Covid policy recently abandoned, the country of 1.4bn people is finally opening up and this can only be good news for its beleaguered football industry. 2019 seems like a lifetime ago. Back then the league may have been…