Recently, a mysterious letter from FIFA surfaced unexpectedly. The letter was originally scheduled to be sent on January 30th, but only became known to the public recently. The content of the letter is mainly to congratulate Wuhan Sanzhen team for winning the Chinese Super League championship, and highly praised the hard work of the Chinese Football Association this year. The letter was signed by FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
At first, I was skeptical about the authenticity of the letter. Looking back at the past seasons of the Chinese Super League, whether it was Guangzhou Evergrande, Jiangsu Suning, or later Shanghai SIPG or Shandong Taishan, FIFA has never sent out a similar letter of congratulations after the champion team won the title. Compare to the champion teams of the five leagues, it is even rarer to receive personal congratulations from FIFA. FIFA's focus seems to be more on the national team level. However, media verification confirmed that the letter did come from FIFA.
FIFA personally congratulated Wuhan Sanzhen team, behind the intention may be more to the Chinese Football Association pressure. Especially Chen Xuyuan in charge of the Chinese soccer, if not handled properly "Li Tie incident", fearing that will face FIFA's severe sanctions, and may even be banned from the world.
So why did FIFA congratulate the Wuhan Sanzhen team alone for winning the title?
Is it simply that their names sound auspicious? Apparently not. Wuhan Three Town's win means a lot to Chinese soccer.
As we all know, the Wuhan Three Towns team publicly challenged the CFA before the final round of the Chinese Super League. This kind of courage is unprecedented in the history of the Chinese Super League! Subsequently, CFA also responded positively to the questions raised by Wuhan Three Towns Team and asked them to submit relevant report materials.
After the FA incident, many fans believed that the Wuhan Sanzhen team's prospects of winning the championship were uncertain. After all, they challenged the authority of the FA. From a Chinese perspective, the behavior of the Wuhan Three Towns team was indeed suspicious. Fortunately, the incident was eventually exposed to the public eye and no one dared to do anything rash. In the end, Wuhan Three Town managed to win the Chinese Super League title.
It is worth mentioning that Chen Xuyuan did not attend the award ceremony for the Wuhan Sanzhen team. This episode is quite meaningful. According to the tradition of awarding prizes in the Chinese Super League, Chen Xuyuan usually attends the award ceremony. However, this time he was unexpectedly absent!
Therefore, FIFA's congratulations to the Wuhan Three Towns team for winning the championship is not only an acknowledgement of their victory, but also a commendation of their spirit of upholding fairness in soccer.
Next, let's talk about why FIFA is taking this opportunity to hammer the CFA.
In this FIFA letter, they specifically mention, "Thank you to the CFA for their contribution to Chinese soccer."
I am afraid that the more the CFA listens to this statement, the more embarrassed it is and the more wrong it feels. Everyone knows that the CFA has not made any contribution worthy of FIFA's praise. Therefore, they did not take the initiative to publish a letter of congratulations at the first time, but waited until a blogger exposed it recently before it could be publicized. This shows that the CFA is still somewhat self-aware and prefers to keep a low profile.
Looking back on the past year of Chinese soccer, the world preliminaries against Vietnam, the Chinese Super League widespread wage arrears phenomenon, the World Cup occurred during the "Li Tie case", and early this year there are two Football Association officials involved in it. These events seem to run counter to the CFA's contribution to Chinese soccer. After Li Tie's arrest, a number of matches in the former Chinese Super League were revealed to be suspected of match-fixing.
There is nothing FIFA hates more than the phenomenon of "match-fixing", which is a sign that they have worked so hard for, but also a harm to the great sport of soccer. Therefore, the crackdown on the CFA is likely to be related to match-fixing. If the CFA mishandles Li Tie's case, the national soccer team is likely to face a global ban from FIFA. It must be said that Chen Xuyuan is under more pressure than ever this time! It would be a tragedy if the national soccer team is banned at his hands.
