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Corruption in Chinese chess exposed

By SUN XIAOCHEN | China Daily | Updated: 2025-01-15 08:54
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With reigning Asian Games champion and several grandmasters banned for life, the latest crackdown on corruption in xiangqi, or Chinese chess, has exposed a serious integrity crisis tarnishing the board game's profile in China.

Highlighted by the scale and severity of punishments, the continuous fight against illegal acts in domestic xiangqi competitions, including match-fixing and bribery, by a joint task force of the game's governing body and police departments in related regions has shaken the sport's landscape.

Three more high-profile players — 2023 Asian Games gold medalist Zheng Weitong, silver medalist Zhao Xinxin and Wang Yang, who all previously held grandmaster titles — received lifetime bans from the sport on Sunday, joining Wang Tianyi and Wang Yuefei, two former world champions who had been banned for life since September, as the governing body announced the latest penalty targeting over 40 players found cheating in domestic events at different levels.

Fourteen players, including the five banned for life, have had their technical titles stripped, while violations such as "buying and selling matches" were uncovered as early as in 2012, according to the administrative center of chess and cards sports under the General Administration of Sport of China.

"For over a decade, such illegal activities have been hampering the healthy development of the sport, resulting in the manipulation of match results, the unfair distribution of prize money and control of player promotions," said Gai Hongyan, a deputy director of the administrative center and the secretary of its disciplinary committee.

The penalties stem from an investigation into alleged violations unintentionally revealed in 2023 by six audio clips recording a discussion between Wang Yuefei and another punished player, Hao Jichao, over an agreement on match-fixing.

The recordings, totaling 12 minutes, were leaked on Chinese social media in April 2023. The posts drew intensive attention to the scandal, now known as "Recording Gate", and triggered an immediate investigation.

"Never mention his name on the phone! Remember!" Wang Yuefei told Hao during their leaked phone call, apparently discussing a high-ranking player they were planning to bribe to throw a match.

That player was confirmed as Wang Tianyi, arguably the country's most decorated xiangqi master before the penalty, who had won four national and three world championship titles and had dominated the country's top ranking for over a decade.

The fall of the "Alien", as Wang Tianyi is known by fans, and his fellow grandmasters has reflected a lack of supervision, transparency and respect for the rules in the domestic game, where the pursuit of instant promotion, national titles and prize money has gone too far, according to insiders.

"The huge temptation of benefit for a high-ranking player to maintain his place and for a lower-ranked player to earn more money was too big to refuse sometimes in a game, especially between commercial clubs," Cai Yi, a former Chinese chess player and a lawyer with Beijing-based DeHeng Law Offices, told China Central Television.

"Once a player earns the grandmaster title, his appearance fee and bonus for each win at a tournament will rise significantly with the title promotion, prompting someone to take some illegal and desperate steps."

Zhu Wei, a professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, said the game's evolving competition network — driven by money and fame — needs stricter supervision and stronger administration.

"I think, just like any professional sport, it's time for an overhaul of the game's system and to perhaps incorporate more high-tech methods into the supervision and monitoring of competitions," Zhu said.

In addition to players being punished, three top officials with the administrative center of chess and cards sports, including its former head Zhu Guoping, were removed from their posts in November. None have publicly commented on their dismissals or responded to any interview requests.

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