Zhou family steps up offensive on authorities
SHANGHAI: China's cue sports authorities swindled training funds and falsified sports rankings to block Zhou Mengmeng from competing in international matches, the family of the beleaguered women's billiard player claimed yesterday.
"Some leading officials at the Multi-ball Games Administrative Center did things that cannot bear the light of the day," her father Zhou Ruixin said yesterday at a self-sponsored press conference in Shanghai.
Zou Ruixin, father of China's women's billiard player Zhou Mengmeng, shows alleged evidence to the media at a press conference yesterday in Shanghai. Zhou accused the nation's cue sports authorities of swindling training funds, and falsifying sports rankings to block his daughter from competing in international matches. Gao Erqiang |
"They cooked accounts and likely took possession of training funds allotted by the country for the Doha Asian Games worth 22,400 yuan ($2,870)."
Zhou was involved in a sexual harassment scandal during last December's Asian Games that has embarrassed the authorities and left her family enraged.
Zhou claimed she was sexually abused and beaten by male teammate Tian Pengfei while in Doha.
In a surprise response measure, Chinese authorities elected to punish both athletes: Tian for his transgressions, and Zhou for approaching the press without due authorization.
Zhou's parents were on the offensive again yesterday, filing lawsuits with a court in Shanghai against several cue administration officials for defamation.
"We really have no way out, so we are forced to resort to this," said Zhou Ruixin.
His daughter, a 19-year-old eight-ball pull semifinalist at Doha, claimed she suffered attacks from Tian the night before the competition. She later withdrew from the bronze medal play-off citing emotional distress.
Local authorities banned both players for one year and ordered Mengmeng to apologize for "irresponsibly approaching the media and giving up her bronze-medal match."
The authorities said she had an "extremely bad influence" on the team, and had not "properly recognized her mistakes" despite several occasions to do so.
Zhou's father was furious at what he described as the use of "retaliatory" measures against his family.
"The center has promised on public occasions that they would not intervene in my daughter's individual matches overseas. But some officials abused their positions to retaliate against us simply because Mengmeng personally approached the media and refused to apologize."
Officials at the center privately asked the World Pool-billiard Association (WPA) and the Asian association to lower Zhou's ranking in China from second to third, he claimed.
As evidence, he showed yesterday a copy of an email dated January 13 from a cue administration official to the WPA.
"This means that my daughter cannot take part in many international games because overseas matches usually only allow the top two players in a country to participate."
Other officials were instrumental in blocking her access to overseas events by interfering with her application process, he alleged.
"They have even appealed to the United States to intervene.
"We were told that an interview at the US consul in Shanghai was canceled the previous night because of manipulation from sports authorities in Beijing."
The family were forced to appeal to the court after they were ignored by the center, he said, adding that he had a tape recording of their conversation with the authorities to back up this claim.
The elder Zhou also accused officials of swindling funds during a seven-day training period at his center in Shanghai prior to the Asian Games.
As the general manager of Shanghai Legend Billiard Co. Ltd, which serves as the China Billiards and Snooker Training Center, Zhou claimed that the real expenditure of the team was little more than 3,000 yuan ($384). Despite this, he said, officials asked for a 22,400 yuan invoice.
The family showed evidence of bank transactions yesterday to support the claim.
"This scandal highlights the management problem in China's sporting circle," family lawyer Lei Yanjun said. "It reflects how authorities are still using the 'traditional approach' to manage athletes after the 1980s, which certainly cannot be considered a winning formula.
"It is time for them to study how to guarantee the basic rights of our athletes," he added.
(China Daily 02/13/2007 page22)
