China’s sports are in the grip of corruption and high handedness which have brought bad publicity to China.

China has mostly topped the medal tally in global sports including Olympic Games yet it has its shares of controversies.

Soccer which is very popular in China due to political encouragement is caught in corruption.

Two senior staffers of the Chinese Football Association (CFA) have been put under investigation for suspected serious violations of discipline and law, China’s sports regulator said on Saturday.

The investigations are the latest in a string into CFA officials after a recent anti[1]corruption investigation of Chinese soccer.

The investigation against these officials was prompted by the lack of performance by China’s men’s football team.

According to the government, and according to China’s main sporting body, football players must have the task of being a “good example” for Chinese society, respecting pre-established aesthetic standards.

The national team despite investment, an array of coaches, both foreign and domestic, has only qualified for one World Cup, in 2002, when they lost all three matches and failed to score a goal.

The women’s team, however, have a much better record. In December last year, China’s soccer governing body had issued stern penalties , including lifetime ban on high-ranking individuals from the country’s biggest soccer training school, after malpractices were found in a controversial match at the province level football match.

The Chinese Football Association had suspended the membership of the Guangzhou Football Association for two years and urged the southern city’s soccer arm to rectify and rebuild its organizational team by Dec. 24, 2024.

Six individuals — the chairman of the Guangzhou Football Association, XieZhiguang, and five others from the Evergrande Football School were found guilty of match-fixing and banned from joining any soccer-related activities managed by the national body.

The incident had an “extremely bad influence” on the public image of soccer in China.

Soccer regulators have crackdown on the sport over the past decade, with officials and coaches being handed hefty fines and lengthy prison sentences for match-fixing, bribes, and fraud.

The most recent corruption investigation against former Chinese men’s soccer coach Li Tie disappointed many this November.

Chinese authorities had launched an investigation into former national men’s soccer coach Li Tie, with the ex-Premier League player suspected of “serious violations of the law”.

Controversies broke out in Winter Olympic games last year. The short-track speed-skating competition in Beijing was not without a controversy, bringing disrepute to the host China.

South Korea’s Kwak Yoon-gy had spoken out in February 2022 after short-track speed-skating mixed team relay, which saw China survive a semifinal race only after the disqualification of the Russian Olympic Committee and the US — both of which finished ahead of the host nation.

After a video review, the ROC had earned a penalty for “causing obstruction,” while the US was docked for “blocking.”

China later won gold in the final. “Looking at the way China won the gold medal, I felt bad that my younger teammates had to watch something like that,” Kwak said via the Yonhap news agency, per Reuters. “I thought to myself, ‘Is this really what winning a gold medal is all about?’ Things all just felt very hollow.”

Two days later, another controversial ending left many challenging the legitimacy of certain short-track speed-skating results. In January 2022, the Chinese government had imposed real aesthetic and behavioural standards on its citizens, restricting their freedom of expression.

Experts feel that it is high time that China takes effective steps to bring discipline in sportspersons especially in soccer.

As a result, footballers such as Zhang Linpeng and Zhang Xizhe – the main ‘targets’ because of their media exposure – had forcibly ‘removed’ their tattoos in order to continue playing for their country’s national team.

The note from the GAS (General Administration of Sports) was amply clear for players in the first team and the under-20 team of the Chinese national team to remove their tattoos to continue to play for them.

According to the government, and according to China’s main sporting body, football players must have the task of being a “good example” for Chinese society, respecting pre-established aesthetic standards.

Experts felt that China was providing – even in the sporting world – a real “militarising” repression of customs that in other countries are closely rooted in pop culture.

Experts feel that it is high time that China takes effective steps to bring discipline in sportspersons especially in soccer.

Soccer is the first sport to find some commercial success in China, and the players are highly paid too.

Many people in China spend a lot of time sitting around radios or televisions tuning in to soccer matches, which can be quite rowdy.