A sweeping campaign against corruption in Chinese football
The country does some soul-searching about a glaring national weakness
Most of the time, Sima Nan is a cheerleader for his country and its ruling Communist Party. His posts on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, are often venomous about the West. But on February 20th his ire was triggered by affairs at home. In a lengthy message to his nearly 3.2m followers he excoriated men’s football in China, suggesting that “fundamental flaws” in the Chinese game were hampering the country’s efforts to compete in the international political arena, too.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “In the net ”
From the February 25th 2023 edition
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