The Chinese Football Association (CFA) yesterday banned 43 people for life over alleged gambling and match-fixing, including three former China internationals and South Korean World Cup player Son Jun-ho, state media said.
Under President Xi Jinping, Beijing has deepened a crackdown on corruption in Chinese sports in the past few years, especially soccer, and jailed numerous top officials.
Xi is a self-confessed soccer fanatic who has said he dreams of China hosting and winning the World Cup.
Photo: AFP
However, that ambition appears further away than ever after repeated corruption scandals and years of disappointing results on the pitch.
The banned 43 were mostly players who were among a total of 128 people implicated in a two-year probe into illegal gambling and match-fixing in the domestic game, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security said, according to state media.
The news came hours before a home 2026 World Cup qualifier between China and Saudi Arabia and less than a week after the national team suffered a humiliating 7-0 defeat to rivals Japan.
Association accused Son, who played for Shandong Taishan in the Chinese Super League, of participating in match-fixing and taking bribes.
The international midfielder, who appeared in three of South Korea’s four matches at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, returned to South Korea in March after being held in China since May last year.
At the time, Beijing said that he was detained “on suspicion of accepting bribes by non-state employees,” without providing details.
A representative for the 32-year-old Son, who now plays in South Korea’s top domestic league, told Yonhap news agency they were “bewildered” by the allegations and that Son would hold a news conference to address the claims.
Also banned from Chinese soccer for life is Jin Jingdao, another former Shandong Taishan player, and fellow Chinese internationals Guo Tianyu and Gu Chao.
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
RSS