Tie prompts calls for speedier reform

Eight months after a plan was unveiled aiming to catapult China to a future World Cup title, the nation's high hopes ran aground again on Tuesday as Team China tied Team Hong Kong Special Administration Region in a scoreless qualifying match for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

The tie left only a theoretical possibility that the Chinese team would qualify for Russia, depending on results of other teams in the pool stage.

If it misses the thin odds, it will be China's fourth failed World Cup qualifying campaign since its only qualification in 2002, a disappointment in light of President Xi Jinping's well-publicized wish, expressed in 2011, that China would reach the finals again and win.