From the Readers

Where should Chinese football go

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-06-25 15:42

Comment on "Road to Brazil 2014 begins at home" (China Daily, June 25)

Anyway, corruption is so embedded in Chinese football and needs to be rooted out before it can even think of becoming a global or Asian powerhouse. After seeing games in Guangzhou they still have decades to go. I do hope, though, that Chinese football will one day get out from under the cloud of corruption, but until this day emerges, it will be on the back burner for a very long time to come, while Japan and both Koreas surge ahead of it. Even Vietnam is making headway ahead of China.

Whoever, on China Daily website

China has done wonders after it emerged in 1949, following a century of immense poverty when the life expectancy of its citizens was about 35-40 years (like the present-day Lakota Indians in the US). But the vast population increases, nearly three times the pre-1949 figures, also means that the nation's attention should be directed toward more urgent matters, and not sports. True, China is the first Third World country to top the gold medals in the Olympic Games, and its dominance in sports such as diving, badminton, table-tennis, is well-known. But the most important goal for China, so far as sports is concerned, must be to let it serve the physical well-being of the people. The present CCP has, since 30 years ago, gotten most of China's priorities wrong: it must step back and rectify its mistakes. Football - or any other sport - isn't China's priority. The general health of the masses is.

Larrydu, on China Daily website