Fans boo cancellation of soccer broadcasts

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-09 07:38

The live broadcast of a soccer match between China and Japan was cancelled on the weekend, prompting accusations that "deeper" motivations were behind the move.

CCTV-5, which owns 85 percent of the country's television sports market, had bought the rights to the East Asian Championship game and scheduled it for broadcast from Tokyo on Saturday evening.

But when fans tuned in for the clash with China's fiercest rivals, they were presented with a local version of the long-running European game show Jeux Sans Frontier, "Inter-Cities".

Sunday's sports news on CCTV-5 did not mention the 0-0 result, nor even that the match had taken place, local newspapers reported.

CCTV-5 officials declined to comment on the reasons for dropping the match and were unavailable for comment yesterday.

But the Chongqing Evening News cited sources as saying that the cancellation is likely to be an order from "senior officials".

The Chinese team plays South Korea tomorrow and Hong Kong on Sunday but neither match has been scheduled to appear on the channel.

With Chinese soccer mired in a match-fixing scandal, the 0-0 draw extended the country's 12-year run without a victory against its East Asian neighbors.

"I want the national team to play well whether on CCTV or not," Wei Di, head of Chinese Football Association, told the Modern Express newspaper.

CCTV-5's decision to cancel the broadcast triggered heated discussion online.

By yesterday afternoon, nearly 30,000 people had taken part in a survey on sina.com, one of China's biggest news portals, with 44 percent of them expressing regrets towards CCTV-5's decision and asking for the broadcasts to resume.

About 30 percent of respondents believed the cancellation has a "deeper" reason, while 26 percent welcomed the CCTV-5 move, saying China's soccer is poorly played and does not reflect the country's sports development.

Some people even joked online.

"CCTV is really considerate. It's getting close to the traditional New Year holiday, and the station would not like the poor performance of the national soccer team to ruin the festive mood of the Chinese people," a Beijing netizen commented on sina.com.

Chinese football was previously suspended from CCTV after a massive fight between Beijing and Tianjin players on the field during a Chinese Super League match in 2008.

The channel also cancelled its wildly popular broadcasts of National Basketball Association games during national mourning days for the 80,000 victims of the Sichuan earthquake earlier that year.

"We did show one game but then we were informed not to continue," Jiang Heping, director of the state TV sports channel, said at the time.

Chinese soccer is currently in a state of disgrace after the arrest of several top officials in the ongoing match-fixing probe.

The former head of the Chinese Football Association, Nan Yong, and more than 20 other officials, players and club managers have been arrested in the last three months on suspicion of match-fixing or corruption.

China Daily - Reuters

(China Daily 02/09/2010 page3)