sOCIETY
Liu’s transfer. Guo Bin, husband of former national table tennis play-
er Wang Nan and a close friend of Liu’s, shared on his Weibo that the
Chinese ping pong teams implemented a similar joint coach system
in the end of the 1990s, which did not lead the teams to victory.
After the men’s and women’s both lost the doubles in the 2002 Asian
Games, the joint coach teams were dismissed, with Liu taking over
the men’s team. Guo questioned why the CTTA had resumed the
fruitless joint coach system and kicked Liu out.
“You [Liu Guoliang] are young and strong, and at the peak of your
career, but now you are being toyed with... What they torment is
not you, but the national sport,” tweeted Guo Bin on June 20. Over
27,000 netizens “liked” his post.Similar to Guo, some media reports and commentators questioned
whether the CTTA was “killing the donkey the moment it leaves the
millstone.” They took former women’s volleyball chief coach Chen
Zhonghe and former men’s basketball chief coach Gong Luming as
examples, revealing that when Chen and Gong left, similar doubts
were raised and the GAS was often criticised for making “hard-to-
understand” rearrangements. Now, people asked if Liu’s achievements
had triggered any jealousy in a leader or leaders, or if Liu had fallen
victim to an infight.Opaque
Neither the CTTA nor the GAS has given any answer. On the
contrary, they came out to denounce the withdrawal by players and
coaches as ignoring the team and the country’s interests.
“It is a violation of professional ethics and disrespectful to both the
spectators and rivals to quit the competition... We demand all teams
and athletes hold collectivism and patriotism as top priorities,” read a
statement from the GAS following the walk out of the three players.
The CTTA made a similar criticism and claimed that it would punish
the players and coaches involved.
The official criticism pushed more netizens to stand on Liu’s side.
“No, we spectators do not think that the [players who have quit the
tournament] have let us down. Instead, you [the GAS] should apolo-
gise for discharging our admired coach,” and “Is it patriotic that of-
ficials arbitrarily manage the sports regardless of the public’s appeals?”
were two of the most re-tweeted posts supporting Liu and the protest-
ing players. Even the small number of people who wondered whether
Liu, who often sparked controversy by making no secret of his luxuri-
ous lifestyle, had been involved in corruption or should bear some
responsibility for his subordinate Kong Linghui’s alleged violation of
discipline, believed that no matter whether Liu’s transfer was “reason-
able” or not, they have the right to know what had really happened.
“Chinese sports are owned by the entire people and supported
by people’s taxes. The tax is not paid for the officials to play power
games... We need to know the truth, not merely a simple punish-
ment,” said a commentary published on wggyt, a public account on
WeChat which was widely re-posted by many other media.
The officials, however, tried to hush the issue as soon as possible.
Netizens found that many of the tweets and articles supporting Liu
or questioning the transfer were deleted from social media. Guo Bin
also revealed that the national ping pong teams were forbidden to
comment on Liu’s transfer and even banned from using Weibo for
the hour before the transfer order was released. Guo’s words were
confirmed by media outlets which revealed that their journalists were
asked not to ask any questions about Liu’s transfer when they were
reporting on the ongoing China Open.
On June 24, the Chinese table tennis team posted an open letter
on the CTTA’s official website, apologising for the three players andLiu Guoliang wins the World Cup champion in Nimes, October 27, 1996
Photo by AFP