Yesterday (January 9), Beijing time, CCTV's annual anti-corruption feature film "Continue to Make Efforts to Promote in Depth" broadcast the fourth episode of "Promoting the "Three Non-Corruptions" in One Piece", reporting on the systemic and landslide corruption problem in the football field. As soon as the show was broadcast, it set off a heated discussion across the country, and the popularity even far exceeded the finale of the TV series "Flowers" broadcast that night.
Through Du Zhaocai, Chen Xuyuan, Li Tie and others confessing their corruption problems, the anti-corruption work of Chinese football has once again become the focus of national attention, and the match-fixing has made fans across the country feel painful. The program team even took advantage of this to exclude the "starting eleven" and "three substitutes", which seemed to be a joke, but in fact showed the problems of Chinese football naked in front of the world.
However, what makes the outside world feel even more chilling is that it was not until the broadcast of last night's feature film that it was learned that in fact, the corruption problem of Chinese football has never been truly solved since 2001......
On February 18, 2013, the Disciplinary Committee of the Chinese Football Association issued penalty decisions No. 001 to 038 on the official website of the Chinese Football Association. 38 penalty decisions were issued at one time, which is unprecedented in the history of Chinese football. And all this stems from the so-called "self-reflection" of Chinese football, which also drew an end to the anti-gambling and anti-crime storm in Chinese football that began in 2009.
In fact, this is not the first time that Chinese football has encountered serious corruption problems, the 2001 "A B Five Rats" incident made Gong Jianping the first name to be nailed to the pillar of shame, and he also became the first referee in the history of Chinese football to be sentenced to prison for bribery, match-fixing, and black whistles. But in 2004, Gong Jianping, who was still serving his sentence, died of illness, and the first anti-gambling and anti-crime campaign in Chinese football was hastily completed.
It can be said that it is precisely because of that "hastily" that the corruption problem that has been deeply embedded in Chinese football has not been solved at all, and such a move to stop the boiling also indicates that the anti-gambling and anti-crime storm in football that shocked the whole country and even Asia in 2009 is destined to be set off. On October 16, 2009, Zhong Guojian, the former owner of the Guangdong Eagles, was controlled by the police, and the anti-gambling and anti-crime campaign in Chinese football kicked off......
Subsequently, Yang Xu, an official of the Guangzhou Football Association, was taken away by the police on suspicion of bribery, and Wang Xin, deputy general manager of Shanxi Land Rover, and Wang Po, general manager, were arrested on suspicion of running a Chinese team to participate in the Singapore league and rigging the game in April 2007. In March, Nan Yong and Yang Yimin, former vice chairmen of the Chinese Football Association, and Zhang Jianqiang, former director of the referee committee, were arrested on suspicion of accepting bribes for manipulating football matches. In October of the same year, Xie Yalong, former vice chairman of the Chinese Football Association, Li Dongsheng, former director of the referee committee of the Chinese Football Association, and Wei Shaohui, the former leader of the national football team, were arrested on suspicion of manipulating football matches and accepting bribes.
Finally in December 2011, the anti-gambling and anti-crime case that shocked the Chinese football world ended two rounds of sentencing in Tieling, including referee Lu Jun, former general manager of the Chinese Super League company Lu Feng, former vice chairman of the Chinese Football Association Xie Yalong, former director of the Football Management Center Nan Yong, including many people were sentenced, of which the longest sentence was Shao Wenzhong, the former general manager of Ford Bao Company, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison and confiscated 500,000 yuan of personal property for embezzlement and embezzlement. Zhang Jianqiang, former secretary general of the referee committee of the Football Association and director of the women's department, and Li Dongsheng, former director of the referee committee of the Football Association, were sentenced to 12 years and 10 years and 6 months in prison respectively.
The Chinese Football Association also issued 38 fines in a row on February 18, 2013 for this anti-gambling case, Xie Yalong and other 33 people were banned from engaging in football activities for life, especially 25 people were banned from engaging in football activities for 5 years. But ironically, Wang Xiaoping, who signed the name of the director of the Disciplinary Committee of the Chinese Football Association on every ticket, now appears in the left midfield position of the "Iron Window Tears 442" formation.
What's even more ironic is that this seems to be the end of the anti-gambling and anti-crime storm in Chinese football that began in 2009, but through yesterday's anti-corruption feature film "Continue to Make Efforts to Promote in Depth", only two years later, as soon as Li Tie became the head coach of the Hebei Huaxia Happiness Football Team, he bluntly proposed that he hoped to use his connections to buy the opponent, and completed the overtaking through a wave of "magical eight consecutive wins......
If you log on to the official website of the Chinese Football Association and search for the word "anti-corruption" in the search bar, you will find that there are only three relevant announcements that can be searched. The first is the announcement of the "Chinese Football Association Holding a Special Lecture on Anti-corruption Warning Education" released on November 20, 2023. The second article has been traced back to December 19, 2011, and it was also when the second wave of anti-gambling and anti-crime in Chinese football was about to end, an article entitled "Anti-corruption and Integrity Alarm Bell Rings for a Long Time, Chinese Football Strengthens Supervision and Reshapes Its Image".
At the end of that article, it was written: "The Chinese Football Association should learn from the case, learn lessons, and take this as an opportunity to remove the hotbeds of corruption, build a long-term mechanism against corruption, and provide a strong guarantee for the revitalization of Chinese football." The Chinese Football Association requires all football practitioners to strengthen the construction of professional ethics and ideological and moral education, consciously resist all unhealthy trends such as fraud, vigorously promote the 'Zhixing style', and work together to reshape the image of Chinese football and revitalize Chinese football. Judging from the results, at the same time as this article was published, there were still people who went their own way and committed crimes against the wind......
Before the broadcast of last night's program, some media reported that the Chinese Football Association issued a notice to internal employees to "learn and watch on time", and asked employees to submit no less than 1,500 words of comments before 3 pm on the 11th. This inevitably sparked a discussion about the Football Association's approach, and many voices said that the way of writing the after-view is still "formalism". In the third episode of "Continue to Make Efforts to Advance in Depth", the program took the tragedy of a resident's self-built house in Jinshanqiao Street, Wangcheng District, Changsha City, Hunan Province suddenly collapsed in a sit-down style on April 29, 2022, and profoundly exposed the man-made disasters caused by the "inaction" and "formalism" of a group of officials.
Obviously, about this annual anti-corruption feature film, the problems reflected in last night's program are not only reflected in football, but also reflect the problems reflected in the rest of the programs are not related to football and sports, but in addition to reflection, it is more about thinking and acting about the present and the future......
Just before yesterday's feature film was broadcast, Ogbu, a foreign aid who played for Shijiazhuang Kung Fu last season, recorded a video, complaining about his red staining in the final game of last season's Chinese League A and the punishment of a five-game ban since then, and said: "It's too difficult to get in touch with the Chinese Football Association, and I feel that the people in the Football Association don't watch the video at all." I hope the Football Association will watch the video so that the punishment can be mitigated."
Regardless of whether it can be punished lightly or not, judging from the available video materials, there may be objections to the punishment of red cards and bans. However, for today's Football Association, it is the first step to take every appeal seriously, and to summarize and reflect on every issue, and it is reported that the anti-corruption work in Chinese football will tend to be normalized and maintain a high-pressure situation, and there is no so-called "end point".
But everyone knows that it's one thing to say it, and it's another thing to be able to do it......