From Chinese Press

Cleansing the soccer world

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-16 07:48

A new round of scandals is sweeping across the country's soccer fields. The latest person to be investigated for suspected match fixing is Xie Yalong, former vice-president of China Football Association. Such incidents justify the government's firm resolve to clean the sport of corruption, says an article in People's Daily. Excerpts:

The ministries of Public Security and Justice began their investigation into soccer corruption in November last year.

Since then, they have investigated many soccer officials, irrespective of their ranking, and booked a few of them.

Investigating officials have targeted every link in the crime chain, from suspects to record books to video replays of matches.

The investigation teams have acted according to the law while questioning Xie and handling his case, and will continue to do so in the future.

Several government departments have joined forces to clean the soccer world of corruption. Insiders and outsiders have helped them by giving them leads to follow in the probes, and the public has wholeheartedly supported the move.

Corruption has been plaguing the soccer world for some time now. Some relevant government departments should have curbed it but they failed to do so.

The situation, however, is improving now, thanks to the joint efforts of the different departments.

This should be a lesson for the departments' officials, and we hope they learn how to eliminate corruption from soccer and help build a healthy sports world.

(China Daily 09/16/2010 page9)