China’s Fans Get Red Card for Soccer Violence
Australia’s AM Radio produced a report about Chinese soccer (football) fans as the competition between Beijing and Tianjin heats up. Listen to it here:
In China’s soccer competition Beijing is on the verge of winning the new national championship for the first time and this is due in no small part to the contribution of two brothers from Australia who’ve become stars in the Chinese capital.
But as Joel and Ryan Griffiths discovered this week, playing football in China can be a dangerous business. The local competition is not only rife with corruption but increasingly fans are becoming violent as they copy the behaviour of supporters in other parts of the world.
China correspondent Stephen McDonell went along to a local derby that turned ugly.
Meanwhile, FIFA has released the ranking of the top 100 men’s soccer teams. China does not appear on the list (it ranks 102).
