Supervision only way to break soccer’s corruption cycle

Several senior officials in the country’s soccer administrative system were sentenced to prison after being found guilty of corruption and power abuses on Tuesday.

Among those convicted were a former deputy minister of the General Administration of Sport of China and former chairman of the Chinese Football Association, who were sentenced to 13 years imprisonment and lifelong imprisonment respectively. This has provided Chinese soccer fans with the opportunity to vent their anger at the state of the game in the country.

But since this has been the third largescale anti-graft campaign in the soccer sector over the past 30 years, during which the Chinese national soccer team has fallen in FIFA rankings from around 40th to around 90th, the question is how the world’s most popular sport can be put onto the right track in the country that has the largest number of soccer fans in the world.

The details of the soccer officials’ graft unveiled by the judicial authorities clearly indicate that due to the lack of effective supervision, their corruption can only be described as “unscrupulous”, as it spanned their whole careers in the soccer circle, and happened in almost every field they were in charge of, ranging from management of the various national teams and league matches at various levels to referee work and youth training.

Were it not for a club sponsor exposing the former national team coach’s “insatiable” embezzlement of the funds of the club he then worked for, more than two years ago, the whole systemic corruption involving dozens of major officials of the soccer system, as well as players and referees, would not have come to light.

The nation used to pin high hopes on the now revealed to be corrupt officials that have been put behind bars, as their appointments about 10 years ago were already the result of the previous two rounds of anti-graft campaigns and subsequent reforms.

For instance, they obtained their posts through winning fierce and open competition. Previously, they had accumulated rich soccer-related working experience and proved their abilities in the government departments, clubs, universities, institutes, enterprises and media outlets respectively. They were all committed to using their professionalism to help reinvigorate the Chinese soccer. Some of them were also fierce critics of the corruption in soccer then when soccer officials were mostly picked from the sport administrative system.

But as the fact shows, the power in a department concentrates only in the hands of the department head, whose authority in the respective fields was unquestioned. Having acquired a taste of power, they became addicted to it.

So instead of drawing the best from each other in terms of their expertise and professionalism, they formed an interest alliance to maximize personal gains by milking the Chinese soccer sport just as their predecessors did. And the huge popularity of the sport makes it a rich seam for speculators and opportunists seeking quick returns in various forms.

That being said, before an effective oversight mechanism is formed in the soccer system, its corruption cycle that is repeated every 10 years, the duration of two terms of CFA officials, will remain unbroken.