IN FEBRUARY 2015, the top leadership approved a reform plan for soccer in China. This was supposed to start reform of the whole sports industry. However, it has met resistance from interest groups. People's Daily calls for firmer measures to push forward the reform:

Reform of the soccer industry has met resistance and it is still going on. Reform of the sports industry as a whole is far from satisfying, too, and that has much to do with resistance from within the sports bureaucracy. The attitude of these officials puts a heavy drag upon the reform process.

Some bureaucrats view sports reform with their own narrow interests in mind and do not want to give up their luxurious lifestyles. The long-standing practice is for sports officials to push athletes to get gold medals as this means the officials will receive big bonuses. The sports officials thus want to continue with things as they are even though everyone knows this way of doing things is no longer sustainable.