Corruption in China's football league could destroy the game there, Asian Football Confederation chief Peter Velappan warned, and voiced disappointment over China's failure to qualify for the 2006 World Cup.

Velappan said all the money and effort ploughed in by the AFC to develop football in China would also go to waste if corruption was not eliminated.

"The government must investigate the allegations of corruption and eliminate the scourge in Chinese soccer," said.

"I have warned them, the government must actively investigate this and eliminate the corruption scourge in Chinese football. If they don't then it will kill football in China and all the efforts we are making for Vision China will go to naught."

Vellapan told China Football Association (CFA) officials last month the league needed to be run more professionally, especially in fields like club management, marketing and media coverage.

"We must bring the fans back to the stadium," he said, adding many supporters had turned away from the super league due to dissatisfaction with "referee corruption and match-fixing".

Velappan was in China to launch the AFC's Vision Asia programme, a semi-professional city football league that will officially start in two Chinese cities - Wuhan in central China and Qingdao in the east.

As there are another 284 cities in China to cover under the programme, involving huge sums of money and effort from the AFC and China, there was a urgent need to address the problem, he said.

"So they have to be very serious to fight corruption. When some Southeast Asian countries had this problem, we advised them to get the help of the police. This is what we have advised China to do," Vellapan said.

In April, China's cabinet stepped in to clean up the country's scandal-ridden football league, ordering a crackdown on match-fixing and hooliganism.

The State Council order, unprecedented in the professional league's 12-year history, came after the inaugural season of the top-tier Super League was blighted by match-fixing accusations, prompting a near walk-out by some clubs.

"Fixed matches and gambling must be resolutely stopped, any appearance of this must be strictly handled," the order said,

On China's failure to qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany, the football supremo said it was a disappointment for everybody, adding that much had been expected of China with its 1.3 billion population.

"Actually it is a great disappointment - not only for AFC but for China itself," he said. China entered the World Cup for the first time in 2002 but failed to make the second round.

Hard work begins

The four Asian teams heading for the 2006 World Cup - Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Iran - will have to strap on their boots and train harder, Velappan said.

"We are delighted that the best four teams in Asia have qualified. And of course qualification is the easiest part of the World Cup process," he said.

"Now they have to seriously start preparing for the World Cup," he said of the competition to take place in Germany.

Velappan said Japan's participation in the Confederation Cup currently being played in Germany would allow the team to gauge its standing against other international sides.

The Asian teams would have to take into consideration that unlike the previous World Cup which was played in South Korea and Japan, they would no longer have a "home" advantage.

"This time it is in Europe. The environment will be different as they will be playing away from Asia," he said.

Velappan said he hoped the Asian teams would be able to improve their overall performance and results.

"Since the 2002 World Cup, Asian teams have improved in all fronts. If you look at the youth tournament that is going on in Holland, some of the teams like Korea and China are playing well. This is an indication that improvements are taking place in Asian football," he said.

Velappan said Kuwait, which reached the World Cup only once in 1982 and exited from the first round, will have to fight for third place with Uzbekistan.

The third-place finishers in the two Asian groups will play off against each other, with the winners facing the fourth-placed team in the North and Central American and Caribbean Zone for a berth in the World Cup.

Source: China Daily