Corruption could kill football in China - AFC
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-19 14:39

KUALA LUMPUR - Corruption in China's football league could destroy the game there, Asian Football Confederation chief Peter Velappan warned, and voiced disappointment over China's failure to qualify for the 2006 World Cup.

Corruption in China's football league could destroy the game there, Asian Football Confederation chief Peter Velappan, pictured, warned, and voiced disappointment over China's failure to qualify for the 2006 World Cup. [AFP/file]

Velappan said all the money and effort ploughed in by the AFC to develop football in China would also go to waste if corruption was not eliminated.

"The government must investigate the allegations of corruption and eliminate the scourge in Chinese soccer," he told AFP in an interview this week.

"I have warned them, the government must actively investigate this and eliminate the corruption scourge in Chinese football. If they don't then it will kill football in China and all the efforts we are making for Vision China will go to naught."

Vellapan told China Football Association (CFA) officials last month the league needed to be run more professionally, especially in fields like club management, marketing and media coverage.

"We must bring the fans back to the stadium," he said, adding many supporters had turned away from the super league due to dissatisfaction with "referee corruption and match-fixing".

Velappan was in China to launch the AFC's Vision Asia program, a semi-professional city football league that will officially start in two Chinese cities -- Wuhan in central China and Qingdao in the east.

As there are another 284 cities in China to cover under the program, involving huge sums of money and effort from the AFC and China, there was a urgent need to address the problem, he said.

"So they have to be very serious to fight corruption. When some Southeast Asian countries had this problem, we advised them to get the help of the police. This is what we have advised China to do," Vellapan said.

In April, China's cabinet stepped in to clean up the country's scandal-ridden football league, ordering a crackdown on match-fixing and hooliganism.

The State Council order, unprecedented in the professional league's 12-year history, came after the inaugural season of the top-tier Super League was blighted by match-fixing accusations, prompting a near walk-out by some clubs.

"Fixed matches and gambling must be resolutely stopped, any appearance of this must be strictly handled," the order said,

On China's failure to qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the football supremo said it was a disappointment for everybody, adding that much had been expected of China with its 1.3 billion population.

"Actually it is a great disappointment -- not only for AFC but for China itself," he said. China entered the World Cup for the first time in 2002 but failed to make the second round.

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