Soccer team cracks down on sloth

In a new initiative to boost players' fighting spirit, Chinese Super League Club Guangzhou Evergrande announced a series of rules on Thursday to regulate its players' behavior while they are with the national team.

According to the rules, players will be severely punished by the club if they play passively for the national soccer team in international games.

"We need to improve the sense of representing the national team. Only when the national team achieves better results can we say Chinese soccer has developed to a higher level," said Xu Jiayin, chairman of Guangzhou's Evergrande Real Estate Group, which owns Guangzhou Evergrande.