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.

"The crackdown on manipulating domestic soccer matches through commercial bribery has showcased a firm attitude in fighting corruption and rectifying the soccer sector," the Ministry of Public Security announced.

"The crackdown also gives us confidence and hope to revitalize the development of Chinese soccer," it added.

Last year, Xie Yalong and Nan Yong, former vice-presidents of the Chinese Football Association, Yang Yimin, former deputy director of the Chinese Football Operations Center, and Zhang Jianqiang, former director of the Referee Association, were arrested on charges of match fixing and bribery..

The investigations made unexpected progress in the summer when two key suspects, Li Ming and Cai Sheng gave themselves up to the police in Liaoning province. Li was a former defender with Shanghai International Club, and Cai was the former chief coach of Qingdao Hailifeng Club. The detaining of the two indicates that the investigation may finally be coming to an end.

Hopefully it will have breathed some life back into Chinese soccer.

But sports legislation has severely lagged behind the development of the nation's sports, which has presented opportunities for criminals to exploit.

The Sports Law of the People's Republic of China became effective on Oct 1, 1995. The Sports Law establishes the main tasks and key principles in managing the country's sport industry and identifies the duties and responsibilities of sport-related organizations.

But although sports management was included in the criminal law in 1995, the law was born out of the "nationwide athlete system" that the country began operating in 1949 and does not cover every aspect of professional sports.

In effect, before the 1980s the Chinese sport governance system was a huge State-run enterprise, as the Chinese government was responsible for funding and overseeing sport-related affairs. The characteristic of this system was the attempt to utilize all aspects of society to train selected candidates for sporting success. The distinctive feature of this system was that the nation had absolute control over its athletes.

It should be noted that this system had many advantages, as the newly established People's Republic was at that time short of everything.

However, with the development of profession sports the system has given way to a market-centered sports management system that has proved to be a hotbed for all kinds of criminal activities, and motivated by the lure of illegal gains, some athletes, coaches, sports officials and staff have proved all too easy to corrupt.

Chinese soccer leagues are supervised by the Chinese Football Association, which is an administrative body as well as a commercial entity. Political advisor Li Jianxin proposed that the football law should stipulate that the administrative and commercial functions of the association be separated to avoid corruption and the salary, social welfare and insurance of professional soccer players should be decided according to market rules.

The investigation into Chinese soccer shows the government is determined to include sports in the national level anti-bribery system and to bring sports jurisdiction to completion.

The author is a researcher of criminal law, Wuhan University.

(China Daily 12/02/2011 page8)