Not yet happy days for national soccer

Corruption and malpractice in Chinese soccer were so rampant that 57 officials, referees and players were tried for taking bribes or being involved in match-fixing in 2012. And last year, former top Chinese Football Association officials Nan Yong and Xie Yalong were imprisoned for more than a decade for taking bribes. Nan once infamously said that players had to pay about 100,000 yuan (about $16,129) to get into the national team.

Scandals like these have tarnished the image of Chinese soccer and thwarted its development. Worse, their effects are still making it difficult to clean the offices managing soccer in China.

Such has been the impact of soccer scandals that when news emerged that Chinese businessman Wang Jianlin was buying a 20 percent stake in defending La Liga champions Atletico Madrid for about 45 million ($52 million), many believed he chose not to invest in a Chinese soccer team because of the corruption.

Yet it seems China is determined to revive its soccer and free it of the shameful stigma of corruption.

President Xi Jinping being a staunch soccer fan himself has helped boost fans' confidence that Chinese soccer will get back on the right track. There are other signs, too, that the country is moving in the right direction to revive soccer. Around the time the Chinese men's team was creating waves in Australia, the Ministry of Education announced a plan to make about 20,000 primary and middle schools nurseries for budding soccer players by 2017. The move is obviously aimed at popularizing soccer in schools as well as to nurse soccer talents.

But while this top-down practice may help prompt more young people to play soccer, more needs to be done to restore the health of soccer at the highest level and win back the trust of both players and fans.

The author is a senior writer with China Daily. wanghui@chinadaily.com.cn