Reporters’ Home section at Xici.net ran a group of photos capturing Fan Zhiyi, captain of China’s national soccer team and a Mr. Football Asia, joining his teammates during a training session in beating and kicking a stadium worker who, ignorant of the training schedule, was watering the grass on the training turf. (The resolution of the photos may not be self-evident to confirm that the man referred is Fan, and some comments asked about the verifiability of Fan’s identity in the picture.) This photo here shows Fan running up to join his teammates around the downed guy, and immediately starting to violently kick him. And a hundred or so trained guards at the stadium looked on as bystanders without going up to stop the gang violence on one individual.
Comments, however, are very telling of a general denouncement of China Team’s mediocre performances and an outcry over millionaire celebrity players’ moral standards. As one comment goes, the reason of Chinese men’s soccer team’s existence is just to keep generating fresh scandals and ridiculous losses and, to a certain extent, divert the public attention on increasingly intense social conflicts. [Photos here]
