DALIAN: China’s Football Association has banned 43 people for life over allegations of match-fixing and other forms of corruption in the latest effort to weed out graft in the country’s notoriously underperforming team sport.
The official Xinhua News Agency on Tuesday reported that Zhang Xiaopeng, a top police official, attended a news conference at Dalian to release details of a “two-year investigation that uncovered a series of online gambling, match-fixing and bribery cases.”
Xinhua said 120 matches in domestic leagues, 128 criminal suspects, and 41 clubs were implicated in the investigation. Of those banned, 38 were players and five were officials working for various clubs.
Former Chinese internationals Jin Jingdao, Guo Tianyu, and Gu Chao were among those to receive life bans from the sport.
Other players and officials were given shortened bans, including foreign players lured to China by the promise of high salaries.
South Korean Son Jun-ho, who played for China’s Shandong Taishan FC, and Ewolo Donovan of Cameroon, who formerly played for Heilongjiang Ice City, were given five-year bans.
Son’s activities “seriously violated sports ethics and sportsmanship, causing a significant negative impact on society,” according to the federation’s statement.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged to make China a football superpower, but the men’s teams haven’t found much traction. Pledges to build new pitches and hire staff have fallen short as the economy struggles to regain its feet following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Japan trounced China 7-0 last week to open the third round of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. It was China’s most lopsided loss against Japan, a geopolitcal rival in Asia.
The Chinese men’s team was playing Saudi Arabia at Dalian later Tuesday in its second World Cup qualifier in five days.
China still has a shot at reaching the expanded, 48-team World Cup in 2026, hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada. But even with the larger field, China still might not make it past the continental qualifying stage.
China has qualified only once for the World Cup. losing all three group games in 2002.
China is currently No. 87 in the FIFA world rankings for men’s teams, just below Curaçao (population 150,000), and just above of Equatorial Guinea (1.7 million).
China’s Football Association bans 43 people for life after corruption investigation
https://arab.news/4qgzy
China’s Football Association bans 43 people for life after corruption investigation
- The official Xinhua News Agency said a two-year investigation uncovered a series of online gambling, match-fixing and bribery
Hakimi declared fit for hosts Morocco’s AFCON bid
RABAT: Morocco captain and star player Achraf Hakimi is fit and ready for the host nation’s Africa Cup of Nations bid but may not start in the tournament’s opening game, coach Walid Regragui said on Saturday.
“Tomorrow will be my decision but he has more than done his job. His injury was not an easy one,” Regragui told reporters in Rabat where Morocco play minnows Comoros in the first match on Sunday.
“I still have another night to sleep and decide whether he starts or whether we protect him and see how it goes for the remaining games.
“He is able to start, but he might not start.”
Paris Saint-Germain right-back Hakimi, the African player of the year, has not played since coming off with a left ankle injury in a Champions League game against Bayern Munich on November 4.
The 27-year-old left the field in tears that night, clearly fearing for his chances of featuring at the Cup of Nations. The injury was later diagnosed as a severe sprain.
“I feel good. I am following the program given to me by the medical staff and the coach,” Hakimi, who also came sixth in this year’s Ballon d’Or ranking, said Saturday.
Regragui added: “He has made sacrifices over the last four or five weeks that nobody else could have made, and has set an example to the other players and the staff.
“Today we can see that the protocol we put in place after his injury has been more than positive but now we have the whole competition to manage.”
Morocco will also face Mali and Zambia in Group A as they bid to win a first Cup of Nations since 1976.
The tournament runs into the New Year and will finish with the final in Rabat on January 18.
