Looking for evidence of how soccer is played differently on the mainland? Then the first interview by new soccer chief Wei Di is worth reading.
'I had never thought of setting foot in soccer,' Wei, a 54-year-old former national rowing and kayaking official, told Sina.com early this month, a week after he was sworn in as the head of the sports administration's Soccer Management Centre. 'But it's my responsibility to accept the call of duty from 'the organisation'. You don't have an excuse to avoid it.'
'The organisation' is a widely used euphemism on the mainland referring to the ruling Communist Party and the authorities in general.
Wei was summoned to the rescue on short notice late last month after three former top mainland soccer officials were detained on unspecified corruption charges. They included Nan Yong, the Soccer Management Centre chief who doubled as effective head of the Chinese Football Association, a puppet non-governmental association that holds China's seat on soccer's international ruling body Fifa. The details of their alleged wrongdoings remain under wraps, but it is widely believed their fall from grace was linked to a wider crackdown on match-fixing and illicit soccer gambling that has snared dozens of coaches, officials and players since last autumn.
Corruption is no stranger in big-ticket sports businesses around the world, given the murky way they are run. In the US, Salt Lake City bidders bought votes that won it the right to host the 2002 Winter Olympics; in Brazil, a five-time soccer World Cup winner, perennial embezzlement charges have dogged Ricardo Teixeira's two decades as president of the Brazilian Football Confederation; and even the International Olympic Committee, the world's highest sports governing body, is sullied, every once in a while, by accusations of hereditary rule and the brazen soliciting of bribes.
But observers say the corruption permeating the 'beautiful game' on the mainland reflects a broader culture of mixing administrative power and commercial interests that has soured many other aspects of governance. 'The organisation' is the problem, rather than solution, they argue. Similarly, the ferocious backlash stirred up by the soccer mess resonates far beyond the world of sport.
