Chapter 4 "Chinese football is broken"

1994 was the watershed of China's reform and opening up. Unfortunately, it has been ignored as an ordinary almanac. In fact, many social conflicts and changes in China in the future began in this year. At present, all walks of life in society No one has anything to do with 1994. But not in 1992. Although Deng Xiaoping made a speech during his southern tour that year, China is too big and too deep, like a piece of the Pacific Ocean. The temperature change of sea water will always be slower than normal land mountains and rivers. , so 1994 was a critical year for Chinese society at the end of the century.

This year, Chu Shijian was named one of the "Top Ten Reform Figures in China" and reached the pinnacle of his life.With a strategic vision, Chu Shijian seized the opportunity for the development of the tobacco industry, and turned a dilapidated small factory in Yuxi area with a per capita income of only a few hundred yuan into Asia's number one tobacco brand with a national contribution of at least 140 billion in profits and taxes. Hongtashan has almost become China's largest tobacco brand. Synonymous with success in economic reform.He was later sentenced to life, and his daughter committed suicide in prison.Chu Shijian is an indescribable phenomenon in the turbulent Chinese society.

This year, another bigger protagonist is Zhu Rongji.Several hard bones are before him: reform of the enterprise system, reform of the fiscal and taxation system, reform of the financial system, reform of the investment system, reform of the housing system, and reform of the price system.These six major battles have completely affected the lives of ordinary Chinese people today, among which the reform of the housing system will be the most profound topic for Chinese people 15 years later. In this year, the "Labor Law" was promulgated. In this year, the "five-day working day" was implemented. In this year, the following things happened: China realized the full-featured connection with the Internet. In countries with the Internet, a cultural and democratic movement in the form of the Internet began to lay the foundation; the Three Gorges Water Conservancy Project on the Yangtze River officially started, and Premier Li Peng delivered a speech at the conference, "Great work in the present age will benefit the future"; the Karamay fire broke out in Xinjiang, China, While the fire was burning, the meeting organizers kept thousands of children on hold and "let the leaders go first."

Things related to sports: On April 17, 1994, the first professional league A started in 6 arenas, and the opening game was held in Chengdu.Football has truly become a sport for all to participate in.The professional league also makes football stars the first to get rich. Another thing is: Xiaoshan Zhili, or He Zhili, a girl who is dissatisfied with the unspoken rules of Chinese sports "handing off the ball", defeated the three top Chinese players including Deng Yaping in the 1994 Hiroshima Asian Games in the roar of "Yo Xi". The master won the championship and was widely dismissed as a traitor by the Chinese media.The most thought-provoking sentence in the media criticism is: He Zhili not only married a Japanese husband, but after the Japanese husband betrayed her and the marriage failed, she still used her ex-husband’s surname. She still does not want to change her nationality and return to China. Chinese husband, this deeply hurts the feelings of Chinese people.

That's it. The events at that time and the values ​​displayed by the events seem like a farce now, but we have walked this way, and we never feel that there is anything wrong, and there is still a trace of inexplicable tragedy. At this point in the story, a story that has been dusty for a long time must be lifted. In order to maintain the original appearance, we try to use the original text published in the newspaper at that time: On March 10, 1994, officials of the AFC claimed that the Chinese team colluded with gambling companies in the Thailand King Cup match and the Liaoning team in the Asian Club Cup match to crack down on fake matches. The AFC has launched an investigation on this matter .When the news came out, there was an uproar.

The Liaoning Far East team solemnly stated that it hopes that the AFC will find out the truth and return the Liaoning team to innocence.Head coach Yang Yumin said angrily: The claim of match-fixing is irresponsible and totally untenable.Marin, the head of the delegation, even wrote a slogan in big font on the wall: False words, to be clarified. The Chinese Football Association set up a special investigation team to visit relevant members of the Liaoning team in the name of the organization. After investigating the facts, they strongly refuted the false allegations of the AFC.Authoritative sources pointed out that this accusation against the Liaoning team is actually a slander of the entire Chinese football, and an attack on the Chinese society that is undergoing reform and opening up. This is inseparable from the sinister intentions of some foreign forces. Through slander and frame Chinese football, to achieve politically ulterior motives.

The well-known football critics at the time also wrote such texts under the organization's instruction: The Chinese are too honest, which makes others unscrupulous. If we don’t fight resolutely and continue to do what we did in the past, if you bear it when someone beats you on the left cheek, you will be beaten on the right cheek tomorrow, so that you can’t tell the pain, it’s better than him If you hit you on the left cheek, you hit him on the right cheek, so that he can also taste the feeling of being beaten. Even if he can't respect you in the future, he knows that you are not easy to bully, so he behaved better.

Even if Chinese football is facing a "broken drum", then it is left to beat by oneself, and there is no need for others to take action. In May this year, the AFC will hold a general meeting to conduct leadership elections.The "West Asian Gang" who have coveted the seat of "AFC Chairman" for many years is bound to compete fiercely with the current AFC leader's "Southeast Asian Gang" in front of and behind the scenes.There is a saying that "when the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman wins." This is very likely to give a chance to the prestigious Chinese Mr. Chen Chengda, who is currently the first vice chairman of the AFC (in fact, Mr. Chen Chengda has no intention of running for the chairman).At this time, the current leader of the AFC suddenly and explosively publicly stated to the outside world that the Liaoning team and the Chinese national team were suspected of participating in gambling. Everyone knew Sima Zhao's heart.

In fact, the spokesperson of the AFC claimed at the time that he had video materials of Chinese people in contact with gambling groups in the hotel.With a strange score - the Chinese team (that is, the Olympic team) lost 1 to 2 to the Thai B team, and the Liaoning team lost 1 to 4 to the Oman club team (the Liaoning team was the first in Asia at the time, and Oman was the fourth in Asia), Based on industry experience and industry regulations, it is entirely possible to make such an accusation, but the Chinese Football Association and the State Sports General Administration strongly protested this, believing that this was not enough to explain the problem at all, and mobilized relevant people to start work.

Later, for some reason, Verapan suddenly announced that during the match between the two Chinese teams in Thailand, they did not accept bribes for match-fixing.So the "bribery" incident has subsided.We are very happy and feel that an international conspiracy has been smashed. Such a sensational event in Asian football that year, the resolution formula is as follows: Chinese players meet with gambling syndicate personnel in the hotel lobby-the AFC disciplinary department took video data-the AFC secretary-general announced to the world Chinese football suspected of accepting bribes—the Chinese Football Association interviewed its players and said it had not played match-fixing—the Chinese Football Association made a serious protest, and the media also bombarded the AFC for anti-China—the AFC suddenly said that the Chinese football team and the Liaoning team did not bribery.

Relying on such a simple formula, it completely denied the 1994 Chinese team and the Liaoning team were suspected of bribery and match-fixing. At that time, the Chinese sincerely believed that it was impossible for Chinese players to participate in bribery and match-fixing, so the whole country was furious, and it rose to the point that it was an insult to the entire reform and opening up of China. Because Chinese sports, from the very beginning, belonged to the category of patriotism. The Chinese women's volleyball team is no different from Huo Yuanjia, and Rong Zhixing is no different from Huang Jiguang.There is an absurd logic: whoever dares to doubt our athletes is doubting our national heroes.Regardless of the vigorous development of commercial sports events around the world, the relevant monitoring mechanisms have also matured. At that time, it was difficult to find articles with a unique objective position, and we found some information with difficulty: On November 8, 1991, in the final round of the National "A" League, the Liaoning team, which won the league championship this year on October 20, lost 4-5 to Dalian, which had 4 wins, 4 draws and 5 losses in the previous 13 rounds. As a result, the Dalian team, which was on the verge of relegation, was able to come back to life, while Sun Wei of the Liaoning team became the top scorer of the first division because he scored 4 goals in this campaign.The Liaoning team, which has cultivated many main defenders of the national team, only conceded 13 goals in the first 13 rounds. The number of goals conceded in the last round accounted for 27.77% of the total number of goals conceded in the whole year; the Dalian team scored 12 goals in the first 13 rounds. The attack power in the last round of the game was miraculously improved to the point where the champion team could score 5 goals in a game. This is obviously an impossible score "in football logic".Therefore, this matter was strongly criticized in the column review article of the world's most famous football publication British "World Football" magazine. In 1978, Bangkok, the 8th Asian Games, the Chinese football team lost to the Iraqi team 0-2 in the first game.An Associated Press reporter named "John Redson" wrote at the time: "The Chinese people's pursuit of friends in the 8th Asian Games football match has reached an unprecedented level. Its defenders sent the opponent's ball into their own goal in the second half of the game..." This origin: one is Chinese table tennis The team once took the initiative to give up the gold medal to others (friendly countries) in international competitions to show the "deep and long friendship" between the two countries.And this move was highly praised in China, so that there was a scene of "comparing, learning, catching up, and surpassing" in Chinese football fields: a newly formed Japanese football team came to China for a visit. I wanted to train the team with real knives and guns, but a football team in a certain city showed a "gentleman" demeanor of not bullying the weak, and frequently "let go" during the game, which caused the opponent to be disgusted. The team leader of the opponent said very unhappy: " It’s okay to give us other gifts, but taking losing as a ‘gift’ is ironic to us!” The second is before 1978, the “fitness ball” of “developing football and enhancing the public’s physique”, “friendship first, competition second "Emotional ball", "conscience ball" that "would rather lose a goal than hurt anyone", and even "political ball" that "would rather lose technically than make political problems" and all kinds of "variant balls" "It is very popular in Chinese football. This is the distant and vague figure of Chinese football match-fixing.