Is It All Worth It?

There is a lot to talk about these days regarding Beijing Guoan: the squad's new players, including one of the league's top scorers last year, Otto, and the exciting young player, Wang Xiaolong, as well as the potential addition of "China's Beckham", Xu Liang, and the Griffiths trifecta now that Joel has officially signed for the squad and brother Adam, a defender, is on trial with the side. That's not what I'm talking about today, and honestly, I'm wondering what the point is even in continuing this blog.

A few weeks back, I taunted those who want to talk about corruption, at the time, the arrests and questioning seemed fairly limited and didn't appear significant, however today the appearance is far different. With the removal of Nan Yong and Yang Yimin and the two being called in for questioning (as well as former Shanghai manager Jia Xiuquan), and with the likes of even China Daily discussing their possible execution, one wonders what to make of Chinese soccer these days. Less than 10 years since the black whistle scandal that rocked Chinese soccer, this current one seems to go even deeper and be even more problematic. It appeared that Chinese soccer had cleaned up its image in recent years and was past that scandal, but now those reforms seem only face deep, and the internal problems that led to that scandal have only continued to fester.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for the fans), the extent of the police investigation and what exactly they are investigating or charging has been largely kept under wraps. How deep this scandal goes is completely unknown and with little more than a month before a new domestic season begins, the police investigation must be wrapped up before the 2010 CSL season kicks off. How can fans be expected to commit themselves to watching another season, to "live and die" over matches that could very well be fixed. It is hard watching nightly news coverage of Beijing Guoan while knowing a police investigation into the very highest level of the CFA is going on. Perhaps this corruption and match fixing can be used to explain why China's national team is so bad. Perhaps the change at the top of the CFA, combined with the current investigation, will revolutionize soccer in China.

Is there reason for optimism? Realistically, no. Until we know the extent of the corruption, its easy to imagine it as all encompassing and it truly casts a pall on the upcoming season.

Corruption, Schmurruption, Let's Talk About Soccer

Chinese soccer has long been an easy target for those looking to talk about what's wrong with sport in China. If sport serves as an allegory for society, than soccer speaks volumes about modern China, with its corrupt, do anything to win attitude. The recent scandal involving Wang Xin, a former GM of the Liaoning side, has brought every news agency out of the wood work and got them talking about Chinese soccer. Never mind that most of the reporters writing these stories have never attended a Chinese league match or that they barely know anything about the state of soccer in China, its a story about corruption and they want it.

I guess I can't blame the reporters, its the headline writers and others who try to sex the story up that deserve my ire. At the same time, too many have made it seem that Chinese soccer is still cancerous, when the story that they're reporting on occurred mostly in Singapore in 2007.

First, there are the problems with what these articles are saying. Again, if sport serves as an analogy to society, than the oft quoted Hong Kong University professor Xu Guoqing's assessment is right on the money. He stated that, "To solve the soccer problem in China you need the rule of law and an independent judiciary. Chinese leaders seem quite serious about fixing this, but there is no way they can under the present regime."

While I'm all for the rule of law and independent judiciaries are a great thing, I don't see how these are the key to solving soccer corruption. It would also seem like you could remove the "soccer" part of that quote and add in any other societal ill in China, and the quote would still work.

And while I don't want to beat up on any one story, the Christian Science Moniter article* not only used the above quote, but also included this bit of brilliance, "So bad has Chinese soccer's reputation become that it is fast losing its popular appeal. Chinese state-owned television stopped broadcasting live games a year ago."

Can you not see my frustration? CCTV stopped showing matches toward the end of last season due to an issue with on field violence. They showed games this season and received large ratings. Also, for a league "that is fast losing its popular appeal", the attendance stats from this season, which would be the envy of all but the most elite European leagues (as well as US NBA or NHL teams), would certainly come as a surprise.

I don't want to talk in depth about the corruption scandal and I've put it off this long because it just feels like old news to me. The perpetrators were in China and it appears some Chinese domestic matches were fixed, but the majority of events were in Singapore. I don't believe that I'm willfully blind on this issue, but I think the league has turned a corner and is, generally, clean. Corruption may have some fiending like a drug addict, there may be some incidents here and there, but overall, we've come a long way since the "Black Whistles" of 2001.

Am I being oversensitive or should we see more intelligent, multisided reporting?