Hé Xiǎolóng: Liú Guóliáng's Actions Are a First in China's Sports Circle, More Destructive Than the Football Association Leadership
Famous sports journalist He Xiaolong recently continued to explode with strong material, severely criticized the chaos of table tennis fan circle, and pointed the finger directly at the head of the national table tennis team Liu Guoliang.
During the live broadcast, someone asked him, "Is Li Tie more destructive to the football ecosystem or Liu Guoliang more destructive to the table tennis ecosystem?"
This is how he answered.
He said that it is inappropriate to compare these two people together. The one who should be compared with Liu Guoliang is the leadership of the Football Association, and he also specifically mentioned that it is a "failed leadership of the Football Association."
He Xiaolong has been deeply engaged in the field of football before and has a good understanding of the football circle. He believes that it is a fact that the national football team is very bad, and there are various problems inside, which is undeniable. However, we cannot attribute all the blame to the chairman of the Football Association alone.
In fact, compared with Liu Guoliang, the seemingly high-ranking and powerful chairman of the Football Association actually has limited power. They can only issue orders in the national team and have limited control over local clubs. They cannot decide on specific matters of local clubs.
On the other hand, Liu Guoliang's power is so great that collective decision-making fails. It can be said that the national table tennis team is Liu Guoliang's "one-man show," and no one in the team can change Liu Guoliang's decisions.
Supplementing this point, the reason why Liu Guoliang can say whatever he wants in the national table tennis team and his power far exceeds that of the same-level chairman of the Football Association is threefold:
First, Liu Guoliang himself is capable. Whether during his time as an athlete or as a coach, his achievements were outstanding and convincing. He has a high prestige within the national table tennis team and many supporters;
Second, table tennis is China's national ball, and the national table tennis team has long been at the top of the world, with a high voice in the world table tennis arena. Liu Guoliang is not only the head of the national table tennis team but also a senior leader of the International Table Tennis Federation. His influence is much greater than that of the same-level leaders of the Football Association;
Third, after adjustments, the national table tennis team is relatively independent. Although it is nominally in an upper and lower relationship with the Pingyu Center, in fact, the leaders of the Pingyu Center only put forward some suggestions and cannot directly intervene in the specific affairs of the national table tennis team. They must fully respect the opinions of the head of the national table tennis team, Liu Guoliang.
Therefore, for the national table tennis team, Liu Guoliang is truly the number one person. Everyone from top to bottom in the national table tennis team must listen to him, and he can not only completely control the national team but also has a great influence on local clubs. How to operate the Super League also depends on his opinion.
After talking about how big Liu Guoliang's power is, He Xiaolong still doesn't forget to severely criticize the chaos of the national table tennis fan circle.
He believes that it is a fact that the national football team has various problems, but the table tennis field is not a pure land, and its transparency is even lower than that of football. He Xiaolong believes that corruption in the football circle has existed for a long time, and problems such as match-fixing have always existed, and they are not caused by any single term of the Football Association leadership. In such an ecosystem, successive leaders of the Football Association are at most fanning the flames and going with the flow, and they are not the main culprits of the corruption problem.
On the contrary, Liu Guoliang's role in the national table tennis team is equivalent to opening the floodgates and unleashing a deluge that cannot be stopped, causing great damage to the table tennis ecosystem.
He Xiaolong previously said that "Liu Guoliang is the source of the chaos in the table tennis fan circle," and now he also mentioned the internal connection between Liu Guoliang and the culture of the table tennis fan circle.
He believes that in recent years, Liu Guoliang has promoted the commercialization of table tennis, created a series of WTT commercial events, praised and belittled athletes (who to praise and who to belittle, I don't need to say, right), carried out low-intelligence marketing, kidnapped the entire national team, and made them submit to the WTT he leads, forming an extremely opaque industrial chain. In addition, as the head of the national table tennis team, Liu Guoliang should properly guide the table tennis fan circle and make it develop in a positive direction. However, he did not do so but instead catered to and indulged it, and even used the fan circle for his own purposes.
He Xiaolong believes that Liu Guoliang's actions are unprecedented in the table tennis circle and even throughout the Chinese sports circle, and their destructiveness far exceeds the damage caused by the leadership of the Football Association to the football ecosystem.
Finally, He Xiaolong also said that the occurrence of such things is also closely related to the lack of media supervision. The media often vigorously reports on the bad things of the national football team and criticizes the national football team without reservation. However, the reporting scale on the national table tennis team is relatively small, because the media listens to the official table tennis association to take into account the overall situation.
As a result, the role of media supervision is becoming weaker and weaker, and the reporting scale on the national table tennis team is getting smaller and smaller, which causes Liu Guoliang's scale to become bigger and bigger, like a wild horse that has broken free, doing whatever he wants, and basically encountering no resistance.
As a journalist, He Xiaolong believes that media supervision is necessary. Someone must stand up to supervise and question Liu Guoliang, correct Liu Guoliang's mistakes, set things right, and return table tennis to a pure land.
Under the background of the country's strict investigation of corruption in the sports industry, Li Tie and other leaders of the Football Association have already reaped the consequences of their actions, and after Chen Meng and Fan Zhendong announced their withdrawal from the WTT, Liu Guoliang was pushed to the forefront, attracting a lot of criticism. Especially He Xiaolong, who has almost every day recently focused on discussing Liu Guoliang and severely criticized the chaos of the national table tennis fan circle.
However, at present, the National Sports General Administration and other official bodies only require rectification of the chaos in the fan circle and have not yet conducted special investigations against Liu Guoliang. Therefore, as fans, we should not rush to a conclusion too early about Liu Guoliang's affairs. Let the bullets fly a little longer!
What He Xiaolong and other media people say is just for reference. Everything still depends on the official notification! We believe that the authorities will not only rectify the chaos in the fan circle but also give Liu Guoliang, who is at the forefront, a fair outcome.
Finally, I hope everyone can objectively evaluate the merits and demerits of Liu Guoliang and not look at Liu Guoliang through colored glasses because of disliking or liking a certain athlete.
Original screenshot of He Xiaolong ↓