2023, China's soccer fight against corruption has been going on for more than half a year. Starting from November last year, as of May this year, 11 people from the Football Association have been taken away for investigation, almost all of them are senior sports officials. Li Tie, the former head coach of the national soccer team, is actually just a small shrimp, which shows how bad the environment of Chinese soccer is. Among the arrested FA executives, 63-year-old Du is the deputy director of the General Administration of Sport and a vice-ministerial sports official. It is unclear what Du was involved in. However, Du's dark stories continue to come to light. For example, he had a close relationship with the female owner of a club, who even called him "uncle".
According to reporter Ran Xiongfei, Li Tie has been taken away for six months and his detention period has expired. He will be taken to a detention center and what awaits Li Tie is prosecution and trial. It is worth mentioning that just in recent times, there is another event in the soccer world that has attracted a lot of attention, and that is the rumor that Argentina is coming to China to participate in a warm-up match with the national soccer team, which was hosted by a sports company in China. However, with the FA having scheduled the national soccer team to play two matches against Myanmar and Palestine in June, it is likely that Argentina will lose the national soccer battle.
Generally speaking, sports companies organizing big events, especially the national team, will surely prepare in advance and start discussing about it with permission, but from the domestic media reports, the sports companies seem to be full of confidence, even Argentinian journalists reported on Lionel Messi and the national soccer team, and the other one was Argentina vs Indonesia, in Beijing and Shenzhen. Even some ticket companies started selling tickets, but now the whole thing is reversed and the national soccer team missed the match against the World Cup winners, what is the secret?
According to domestic soccer journalist Qin Yun on social media, the main reason why the national soccer team missed out on Argentina was Du Zhaocai. Prior to his arrest, Du Zhaocai personally vetoed a proposed match between Argentina and the national soccer team. It is worth mentioning that before the Chinese New Year, the organizers of the event communicated with the Chinese Football Association (CFA), which was represented by the Minister of State Administration, Chen Yongliang, who verbally promised that the match would take place in Xi'an, but the matter was suspended with the failures of the CFA officials, including Chen Yongliang and Liu Yi.
Chen Xuyuan was arrested in February 2023 and then Du Zhaocai took charge of the CFA. He vetoed a proposed match between the national soccer team and Argentina, which amounted to the FA's attitude. But even more breathlessly, even Du Zhaocai went in. So, going into May, there is once again a lot of buzz about Argentina playing in China. It seems a sports company still wants to promote a match between the national soccer team and Argentina. However, the FA has already scheduled two warm-up matches for the national soccer team in advance, and it's almost impossible to change.
The soccer association official now in charge of the national administration is Gao Hongbo, who also heads the competition and referee departments. Li Yingchuan, deputy director of the State General Administration of Sports, is the head of the interim working group of the soccer association, but Gao Hongbo is the real executive, replacing Chen Xuyuan in what amounts to a substitute.The 57-year-old Gao is also embarrassed. If he agrees to a game plan between the national soccer team and Argentina, it will be too late, as Argentina will come to China in June, with less than a month left. In addition, the soccer association has already reached an agreement with Myanmar and Palestine and cannot go back on its word. But if the national soccer team can't play against Argentina, the fans will be very frustrated, and a sports company that has done a lot of work in the last few months, it has become useless. In short, it's hard to put an end to this case, except to say that Du Zhaocai was so toxic that he still hurt Chinese soccer before he was taken away, costing the national soccer team the chance to play against a powerful world-class team.
