The surprise arrests of 14 FIFA officials last week in Switzerland captivated soccer fans around the world, but the Chinese public would be forgiven for not feeling particularly impressed. For the past six years, the Chinese government has been conducting an anti-corruption campaign of its own to clean up its soccer federation, with dozens of leading Chinese soccer figures convicted and jailed on bribery and match-fixing charges so far. With the FIFA investigation and cleanup effort still in their early stages, prosecutors and FIFA officials would be wise to take note of China's successes.
Corruption and soccer have long been linked in the minds of China's soccer fans, and with good reason. In 2001, Chinese car company Geely pulled out of a 30-year deal to sponsor Guangzhou's professional team after only eight months, because the company president said he didn't want to be involved in the team's widespread match-fixing. But Guangzhou wasn't an isolated case. Many Chinese pro teams at the time were suspected of similar activity. League officials disciplined at least three teams for fixing matches, but that hardly seemed a sufficient deterrent.
That's because corruption was thought to extend from the bottom rungs of China's professional soccer leagues to the very top of its state-run soccer federation. According to a one-time boss of the China Football Association, players could buy their way onto China's national team for around $16,000. (That might explain why China has never managed an impressive showing on the international stage; it came away from its sole World Cup appearance, in 2002, with no wins and no goals.) The culture of the sport had become so corrupt that cleaning it up seemed an impossible task — a perception that was breeding an ugly streak of cynicism among China's soccer fans.