China TV blanks match against Japan
Reuters - Monday 08 February 2010, 07:46
BEIJING - China's all-powerful state
sports channel cancelled the broadcast of the national team's
match against Japan at the weekend as Chinese football continued
to reel from the ongoing match-fixing scandal.
The CCTV 5 channel, which owns 85 percent of China's sports
television market, had bought the broadcasting rights to the
East Asian Championship tie and had scheduled it for a live
broadcast from Tokyo on Saturday evening, local media said.
When fans tuned in for the clash with China's fiercest
rivals, however, they were presented instead with a local
version of the long-running European gameshow Jeux Sans
Frontier, "Inter-Cities".
In Sunday's sports news bulletins, CCTV-5 did not mention
the 0-0 result, or even that the match itself had taken place,
local newspapers reported.
CCTV-5 officials declined to comment to local media on the
reasons for dropping the match and were not available for
comment on Monday.
China play South Korea on Wednesday and Hong Kong on Sunday
but neither match has been scheduled to appear on the channel.
Chinese football was previously suspended from CCTV after a
massive fight between Beijing and Tianjin players on the pitch
during a Chinese Super League (CSL) match in 2008.
The channel also cancelled their wildly popular broadcast
of North America's National Basketball Association (NBA) games
during national mourning days for the 80,000 victims of the
Sichuan earthquake earlier that year.
"We did show one game but then we were informed not to
continue," Jiang Heping, director of the state TV sports
channel, told Reuters at the time.
Chinese football is currently in state of disgrace after
the arrest of several top soccer officials in the ongoing
police probe of match-fixing.
The former head of Chinese Football Association (CFA), Nan
Yong, and more than 20 other officials, players and club
managers have been arrested in the last three months on
suspicion of match-fixing or corruption.
The 0-0 draw extended China's 12-year run without a victory
against their East Asian neighbours.
"I want the national team to play well whether on the CCTV
or not," Nan's successor Wei Di told the Modern Express
newspaper.