Authorities keep their eye on the ball
Early this week, the German soccer player Jorg Albertz said in a TV interview that the reason he left Shanghai Shenhua in 2004 is because he suspected some players in the team were involved in match fixing.
Chinese soccer became riddled with match fixing and gambling following the founding of the professional league in 1994, with criminal organizations controlling the outcome of many matches. Such criminal activities involve multiple crimes and the large amounts of money created a gray economy, such as underground banking systems and illegal capital flows.
The scale of the problem finally attracted the attention of senior decision-makers, who instigated a highly determined investigation into the criminal activities plaguing Chinese soccer.
