[EnM4]

Several former officials, including director and vice-director of Chinese Football Administration Center are put on public trial in different cities for malpractice. The 4-day trial, first of its kinds in China, marked the central authority’s determination to eradicate corruptions in football fields, responding to the public’s surging demand.

A scrutiny review of these cases exposes that the suspects almost did not let any opportunity off to take bribes from league match clubs, players and sponsors. In return, they could manipulate league match results, open the door of national team and sign sponsorship agreement by themselves at the absence of effective supervision.

China Football Administration Center(CFAC), affiliated to General Administration of Sport, is the top administrator in football field in China. But it has the other identity called Chinese Football Association, which is supposed to be a civil organization, responsible for daily management and business development of league matches, national teams, youth training, referees and game events.

The dual identities means the hierarchically structured CFAC with a faculty of about 60 has tremendous independent discretions in administrative examination and approval, business development and management and public service on its turf. The over centralization of power lowers the costs of power rent-seeking in such a lucrative field as football.

Take the title sponsorship of China’s top league match as an example. It increases from $1.2 million in 1994 to $26 million in 2003, after China debuted the 2002 World Cup, when it turned out also the peak time for these corrupted officials take advantage of every opportunity to benefit themselves.

The Super League Company headed by officials of CFAC, who is also tried, was assigned to business development and management of China’s top league match. The interconnection among administration, enterprises and management has made gambling and corruption universal on and off football fields. The sponsorship fee of the league match dropped to the level of 1994 in 2011. And China’s rank in FIFA plummeted from 37 in 1998 to around 90 now. The annual income of Chinese players rocketed from about hundreds of dollars in 1994 to millions now.

The professionalization of Chinese football, started in 1994, comes earlier than the other sports in China thanks to hundreds millions of fan population. But it was also this very step that highlights the systematic malady of the backward administration structure in sport field.

Huge amount of capitals flow into the games before a mature market and supervision system are developed. The annual budget for a Chinese club rises from hundreds of thousands of yuan in 1990s to hundreds of million yuan now.

The decaying core and pseudo prosperity of Chinese football are uncovered by fatal statistics.

Some clubs in the top league match do not even have their own youth training programs at all. China only has 8,000 registered player compared with 50,000 in Vietnam, half a million in Japan and 1.46 million in France. Only 2 clubs maintain their ownership stability since 1994 because of their strong State-owned enterprise background.

The crime crackdown campaign in football field provides a good opportunity for the central authority to reform its sports administration systems. China will have a big sports market as its economy develops fast. Integrating its individual systems, like football, one by one into international conventions is required by not only the healthy development of sports in China, but also the professionalization of sports market.

http://www.chinasmacks.com/2011/12/reform-administration-of-football.html