Tian Liang was a star. After winning a gold medal for the 10-meter platform dive at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, he became the subject of national adoration. He won gold again at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
He began racking up lots of endorsement deals, while his celebrity status became fodder for tabloids. This drew ire from China’s sports authorities. He was kicked off the national team in 2005 for “breaking rules.”
When the 2005 National Games approached—a major sporting event considered a platform to identify Olympic-worthy athletes—it was his chance to redeem himself and return to the team.
Unfortunately for Tian, he had gotten on the bad side of an authoritative figure among the country’s diving authorities. Before his competition, the person told judges: no matter how well he performs, you can only give him a maximum score of 8.5. Tian still won gold at the game, but he did not make it to the national team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
In the world of China’s sports, this kind of unethical conduct is all too common, according to an exposé recently published in Fangyuan magazine, a publication managed by the Chinese regime’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate—China’s highest authority for legal prosecution.
The report cited examples of bribery, kickbacks, rigging competition results, and state-business collusion—evidence of rampant corruption in China’s sports industry, which is tightly controlled by the Chinese regime.
The General Administration of Sport of China (GASC) is the main governing body, but sports centers, federations, and coaches countrywide are part of the same system. China’s Olympic Committee is also headed by the GASC bureau chief.
The article noted that the GASC is all-encompassing: it acts as an administrative body, a sports club, and a business entity. Thus it has the power to “set up competition rules, choose athletes and coaches, review and host competitions, make rulings on disputes, and decide how much money to award competition winners.” Fair competition is nonexistent.
Corrupt Officials
Officials, who often hold multiple posts that would normally be considered conflicts of interest, are bribed to promote certain athletes, to ensure winning candidates, and to get kickbacks from corporate sponsors. Xiao Tian, former deputy bureau chief of GASC, one of the big “tigers” (a nickname for powerful officials), was taken down by the Chinese regime’s anti-corruption watchdog agency. Since Chinese leader Xi Jinping took power, he has rolled out a thorough campaign to oust corrupt officials from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Xiao Tian started as a fencer from Anhui Province. During his tenure as deputy chief, he used his position to help people get project contracts and job promotions. He received bribes totaling 7.96 million yuan (about $1.2 million) in value, according to the court that sentenced him to 10.5 years imprisonment for graft.
Yu Li, former director of the Synchronized Swimming Department in the GASC, was investigated for bribery in Oct. 2014. At the 2013 National Games, Yu set up the results of the synchronized swimming competition, so that the team from the host province, Liaoning, would win. Yu had received bribes of 200,000 yuan (about $30,000) from the Liaoning Swimming Center director.
In the article, soccer was named as a particularly corrupt sport, with officials and referees pocketing money and colluding to manipulate games to their favor. Several high officials have since been punished, including former Football Association vice chairman Nan Yong, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2012 for taking bribes totaling 1.5 million yuan (about $245,000) from soccer clubs to secure their wins.
Even holding a competition requires paying a bribe to relevant sports departments in the GASC. The department will charge an “approval and management fee”—which does not provide any actual services—before a competition can commence.
“For many years, the GASC and local sports management departments formed a massive chain of profit through sports competitions,” the article said.
Selection Process
The process for selecting athletes to compete is often opaque and without rules, making it easy for officials to be bribed into allowing an athlete in. Some sports have a head coach that personally makes up the national team list, while others leave it to the leader of the sports center. The article pointed out that this is unlike what happens in other countries, where a third-party organization would organize an open contest to determine the athletes who qualify for a competition.
Tang Na, a talented pingpong player who won first in China’s junior championships in 1996, was widely considered as a top national contender. But she did not make it to the world championship team or Olympic team. Tang later became a naturalized South Korean citizen and competed in the 2008 Olympics as part of the South Korean team, which won bronze. She once said in a 2008 media interview that she felt she was never given full opportunities in China. “The China Table Tennis Association doesn’t use a contest to decide candidates, but designates those with potential beforehand and trains them,” she told the Oriental Sports Daily, a Chinese newspaper.
Gold Medals
China’s sports system also places too much emphasis on winning gold medals. Based on the number of gold medals achieved, sports officials would get promoted, athletes’ careers boosted, and coaches’ bonuses awarded. “With the political prestige and economic benefits gold medals brought, some local sports departments will obtain them at all costs,” according to the exposé. This was especially intense during the National Games, when different provinces and cities were pitted against each other.
In the past, China’s sports industry has been criticized for state-sanctioned doping and ill treatment of retired athletes. Thousands of former athletes, selected for training at a young age, have been denied a normal education and put through grueling routines. When they don’t show winning results or retire, the Chinese regime has failed to provide proper compensation for treating their physical ailments, or assist them in getting a higher education.
Since the exposé was published, the Chinese regime’s official website has revealed that the GASC’s deputy bureau chief Yang Shu’an was relieved from his post, in a roster of relieved officials posted on Dec. 8, Radio Free Asia reported.