Soccer team slammed over loss to Thailand

The Chinese national soccer team's loss to Thailand Saturday has triggered nationwide criticism, with many Chinese furious at the humiliating performance of the team, which has received massive public funds and which many fans had high expectations of.

The team was thrashed 5:1 in a friendly match with Thailand, after losing 2:1 to Uzbekistan on June 6 and 2:0 to Holland Wednesday.

The three home defeats and the fact that the team has only won once this year - beating Iraq in March - have not only left the public furious at the coach and players, but also led them to doubt the way Chinese soccer development was being handled.

According to a web-based survey by sina.com with more than 150,000 participants, over 37 percent said the team lost because players did not try their best or have any fighting spirit.

Coach JoséAntonio Camacho, who signed a contract with the Chinese Soccer Association under the General Administration of Sport that gives him an annual salary of 70 million yuan ($11.4 million), took the blame and said the Chinese team was not fully into the game and failed to fight back attacks, people.com.cn reported.

"The coach should take some of the responsibility. However, without a competition system, we cannot have better players or get current players to improve, and there is no supervision system on player selection," Ma Dexing, deputy editor of the Changsha-based Titan Sports, told the Global Times.

Under the current government-controlled game system, Ma said that most decision-makers sent to run the association had no idea about the soccer industry, and since the officials change every four years, there is no continuity or long-term planning.

Another online survey with more than 37,000 participants showed that over half of those polled are not surprised by the result, since the long history of fraud and corruption at the club level has held Chinese soccer teams back from making any real progress.

Earlier this month, the team for the first time apologized to the public for losing to Uzbekistan by saying "sorry" on its official Weibo account, but the replies were mostly negative.

The association has punished a total of 58 officials involved in corruption and match-fixing. Thirty-three of them, including former soccer chiefs Nan Yong and Xie Yalong, who are both serving ten-and-a-half year jail sentences for taking bribes, were banned for life from soccer-related activities, and 25 of them were banned for five years, Xinhua News Agency reported.

A Web user called "A Liang Gooner" claimed on Sina Weibo that he won 8,000 yuan in soccer gambling with only 8 yuan because he got lucky on the result. But many raised doubts about this claim.

The post quickly drew wide attention and condemnation for the whole system for its bad reputation on gambling.