Windy Shao
CHINESE Super League (CSL) club Wuhan Guanggu has appealed to China’s sports authorities to overturn a Chinese Football Association (CFA) decision after the club announced its withdrawal from the CSL.
The CFA suspended Wuhan defender Li Weifeng for eight matches and fined him 8,000 yuan (US$1,169) Tuesday for a scuffle with Lu Jiang from Beijing Guo’an, who was given the same punishment. The Sept. 28 game ended in a 1-1 draw.
Li, 30, is a former captain of China’s national team who played on the Olympic squad in August.
Reports said the CFA had planned to give Wuhan more lenient punishment but changed its mind after Guo’an, a traditional powerhouse and currently No. 5 on the 16-team CSL list, threatened to withdraw.
Wuhan in turn announced its decision to withdraw Thursday, saying it would sue the Football Association for the unfair decision.
Wuhan had been 15th on the list but was moved to the bottom after its withdrawal announcement. A team loses all its points after withdrawal from the league, according to CFA rules.
Tens of thousands of soccer fans went to the street in Wuhan on Thursday to protest the CFA decision, shouting slogans like “Dissolve the Football Association!” and “The Super League is Finished!”
Web site polls like Sina.com, Sohu.com and Tianya.cn showed that most soccer fans were disappointed with the CFA.
“Forget about Chinese soccer. It’s a mess,” a poll on Tianya.cn said. More than 48 percent of the 2,261 netizens in the poll agreed the opinion as of yesterday evening.
Soccer is wildly popular in China, but most Chinese fans are losing their interest in the national league after national teams suffered embarrassing defeats in international competitions.
Many fans thought the CFA should be held responsible for the setbacks, accusing the association of incompetence. The CFA chief, Xie Yalong, left the position after the Olympic squad was knocked out after the first-round competitions in August. Xie’s deputy, Nan Yong, is an executive chief now.
“The Chinese Football Association has made a wrong decision and we hope the General Administration of Sports will make the right decision,” Shen Liefeng, the Wuhan club boss, told Sina.com yesterday.
Nan Yong said Friday that all the Wuhan players were free to transfer to other teams.