Thursday 30 July 2009

Referee in China Hounded, Chased, and Pushed by Tianjin Players: Consequences

According to Xinhua News Agency, the Chinese Football Association has acted swiftly and disqualified the Tianjin U20 football team from the upcoming National Games held in October.

However, didn’t the result of the match (i.e. Tianjin’s defeat by Beijing) automatically eliminate Tianjin from the upcoming National Games? Or perhaps that particular qualification match was a group game and the qualifying team had not yet been determined? As mentioned previously, the news reports regarding match details and specific outcomes are inconsistent.

Other punishments handed down by the Chinese Football Association are:
Formal criticism to Tianjin team manager and coach.
Tianjin is disqualified from voting/participating in the game sportsmanship award.
Tianjin is ordered to discipline their players, and culpable team members must write a self-criticism report.
Because Tianjin team’s violations are considered serious, the National Games football project requested the Chinese Football Association Disciplinary Committee to further punish culpable staff.


The comments from Tianjin’s coach Sun Jianjun appear to make little sense, and I have not seen or heard anything remotely like an apology to the referee. At the very least, the referee deserves an apology.

As usual, the media has ignored the view from the referee who was hounded, chased and pushed for simply performing his duty. I hope referee He Zhibiao (何志彪) gets the full support from his referees association, Chinese Football Association and all the clubs.




Related Links
Field of violence against the common maintenance of good order in court Chinese Football Association
Tianjin Soccer Team disqualified from National Games for "Beat referee incident" Xinhua news (English)
Tianjin Soccer Team Chasing and Beating Referee China Hush

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