There are finally positive signs for the game, but only after three years that diminished the CSL from its global standingThere cannot be many, if any, leagues that have been affected by the pandemic as much as the Chinese Super League. It was the first to deal with Covid-19 and, with China keeping stringent restrictions on daily life longer than elsewhere, the last to operate in tightly controlled conditions. With Beijing’s so-called zero-Covid policy recently abandoned, the country of 1.4bn people is finally opening up and this can only be good news for its beleaguered football industry.2019 seems like a lifetime ago. Back then the league may have been losing a little of the lustre that made it one of...
As an athlete who spoke up about abuse, I am tired of seeing reputation being prioritised over safetyWhen I first experienced abuse as an athlete, I made a vow to myself to never tell anyone. Ever. I was worried that I wouldn’t be believed, but also the thought that anyone would know me as a “victim” mortified me. On top of that, I knew that even if I told anyone, nothing would change. I was both right and wrong. Years later, after I stopped competing in figure skating, I broke my own silence on the physical abuse inflicted on me in China, and it freed me. I talked about it to my close friends, to reporters, and to my therapist...
With Peng still missing, this must be a watershed moment in how the sport deals with countries that deny human rightsHuang Xueqin was only ever trying to make her world a better place. Over the years she has become well known as a bold Chinese feminist activist and journalist who has aided survivors of sexual assault and wrote detailed accounts of her experiences during the Hong Kong protests. In September, a day before Huang was due to travel to London to study at the University of Sussex, she and the labour activist Wang Jianbing vanished. They have not been heard from since and are believed to have been detained by the Chinese authorities.This is a familiar fate for those deemed...
China’s treatment of Uighurs has been deemed by Canada as genocide. Are we about to legitimise the regime responsible?History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. I am staring at two bundles of newspaper clippings – one present day, one past – and feeling a deepening chill. The first pile details China’s treatment of the Uighur Muslim population in Xinjiang, where more than a million people have been “re-educated” in camps, as well as the calls for the 2022 Winter Olympics to be stripped from Beijing. The second is from the Manchester Guardian in 1935, recording the abuse of Jews in Germany and demanding a boycott of the Berlin Games. The echoes are eerie. The looming question, then as now,...
Sportsmen and women cannot and should not be censored. Sometimes, they are the changemakers we needSince I first found myself, as a high-profile footballer and England international, in the public eye one of the rules I have tried to live by is this: speak from a position of strength. I believe if a player speaks publicly, on any issue, while they are not performing well it will always enrage some fans and the power of their words will be lost. Supporters will think: “Focus on the pitch rather than on your pet cause.” Though some of the people Mesut Özil has angered by posting on social media about China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims won’t care particularly about his form, many...