Dec 30, 2021, 5:10 PM IST
China's sports administration has issued a shocking diktat for footballers in the country. The country's sports authority has ordered footballers playing for China's national team to remove any existing tattoos and 'strictly prohibited' them from getting any new ones.
Football in China has found itself in the crosshairs of the ruling Communist Party's purity drive in the last few years. As per instructions, footballers in the national team have been covering their arms with long sleeves or bandages to hide their tattoos.
However, a new statement issued by the China Sports Administration on December 28 said that footballers in the national team are not allowed to have any new tattoos.
The statement read: Those who have tattoos are advised to have them removed. In special circumstances, the tattoos must be covered during training and competition, with the consent of the rest of the team.
The statement went on to add that the Under-20 national team and even younger are strictly prohibited from recruiting anyone that is inked.
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This new rule has irked football fans in China, with netizens voicing this displeasure on the social media platform Weibo. One angry fan asked, "Are we choosing a good football player or a saint?" Another irked fan asked, "Shall we just say outright that only the Party members could play football?"
Tattoos have been traditionally frowned upon in China in the past. However, getting inked is a fad among young Chinese adults, even though authorities despise it.
In recent years, the Chinese Football Association instructed players to cover their tattoos and sent footballers to military camps for drills and Marxist-style thought education. This treatment from the CFA has irked fans of the sport in the country, with several people issuing complaints about the administration's move to opt for politics over the sport.
This is, however, not the first time the CFA has come up with a bizarre instruction. In 2020, a women's university football match was called off after players were told they were not allowed to have dyed hair.