Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, April 10th: Sports Commentary: Don’t let utilitarianism ruin the future of Chinese football
Xinhua News Agency reporters Xiao Shiyao, Wang Haoyu and Li Chunyu
Recently, a serious false match incident broke out in the men's U10 group of the Beijing Division of the 2026 Fifth China Youth Football League. The report showed that the 16-year-old Orange team of Dongcheng Sports School and the Kickers Blue team tacitly shot own goals at each other in the competition center. The goalkeeper deliberately let go and acted absurdly.
As soon as the news came out, public opinion was in an uproar. Why would a child under ten years old kick the ball into his own door?
The truth is not complicated, but it is dazzling enough: both teams have qualified in advance before the game. According to the schedule, the winning side will encounter a stronger opponent in the knockout round. As a result, the coaches of both sides unanimously chose to "take the initiative to lose." What is even more outrageous is that the on-site referees and game supervisors failed to stop this obviously unsportsmanlike behavior in time and allowed the farce to continue.
Unreasonable competition system design, useless on-site supervision, distorted and misplaced sports values —the three intertwined, eventually led to this farce that should not have happened.
The youth football league, which is supposed to be a pure land for nurturing dreams and a classroom for cultivating moral character, has now once again been tainted by the "match-fixing" scandal, which is heartbreaking.
A match-fixing ruins not only a game, but also the values of a group of children. At an age when children most need to cultivate a correct outlook on life and values and develop a sense of rules, coaches should have taught them that they must try their best no matter whether they win or lose, and they must be upright no matter whether they succeed or fail. Instead, for the sake of a seemingly glorious report card, they instigate children to take advantage of the rules and deeply embed the utilitarian thinking of "winning is everything" into the children's growth trajectory. This not only seriously distorts children's love and understanding of football, but also overdraws the public's trust in youth football competitions and shakes the foundation on which Chinese football is based. After all, when the youth stadium is polluted by utilitarianism, the future of Chinese football loses its purest hope.
After the incident, the Chinese Football Association and the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau quickly set up a joint investigation team and imposed a "football ban" on the team leader and coach involved. The reaction was not unpleasant and the attitude was not firm. It is important to severely punish the parties involved, but more important than treating the symptoms is to treat the root cause.
The match-fixing incident in the men's football B Group A final of the 2022 Guangdong Provincial Games is not far away. At that time, relevant departments also issued severe penalties, but in just a few years, similar scandals were staged again, which is enough to show that simple case-by-case punishments are just "pressing the gourd and raising the pot", and it is difficult to fundamentally curb the unhealthy tendencies in youth sports. Only by carrying out all-round and deep-seated changes can the cancer be completely eradicated.
First of all, the shortcomings in youth competition supervision and competition system design must be made up. The standards of youth events are not as good as those of professional events, but the bottom line of sports fairness cannot be lowered and supervision standards cannot be relaxed. Event organizers must be deeply vigilant, scientifically design schedule rules, plug speculation loopholes, strengthen on-site supervision, allow referees and game supervisors to truly perform their duties, have "zero tolerance" for violations, use thunderous means to stop unhealthy tendencies, and return youth football to a clean field.
More importantly, the misconception of some practitioners must be reversed – the first mission of youth football is never to rush for results, but to educate people. The sports arena is a small human society. Football teaches children not only passing and shooting, but also a sense of rules, fairness and justice. A correct outlook on winning, losing, and sports is the starting point for a correct outlook on life. If you teach your children to cheat in order to win, they may give up their bottom line for profit in the future; if you teach your children to rely on calculation to get "good grades", they may rely on speculation to take shortcuts in life.
In competitive sports, there is nothing wrong with pursuing victory, but we should resolutely oppose the abnormal orientation of "results only". Only by sticking to the bottom line can we have a future. Football starts from childhood, but also from conscience, and returns football to purity, love, and growth. This is responsible for every child who plays football, and it is the right way for Chinese football to get out of the predicament and move towards the future.
