BEIJING, June 25 — A deputy sports minister on China’s Olympic committee is being investigated for suspected “serious breaches of discipline and the law”, the ruling Communist Party’s graft watchdog said today.
China’s sports bodies are in the international spotlight, as Beijing competes with Almaty in Kazakhstan to host the Winter Olympic Games in 2022.
China, which is aggressively stamping out graft in the ranks of its government and Communist Party, has also sought to eject corrupt elements from its sports establishment, especially soccer, which has been hit by match-fixing scandals.
President Xi Jinping, an avowed soccer fan like hundreds of millions of his compatriots, has bemoaned the corruption-blighted game in China as a national embarrassment.
In a brief statement on its website, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said Xiao Tian, whose rank is equivalent to that of a vice-minister, was being investigated, but gave no other details of the probe.
The phrase it used, “serious breaches of discipline and the law”, is often employed to denote graft.
Xiao, a deputy head of China’s General Administration for Sport, is listed as a vice chairman on the website of the Chinese Olympic Committee.
He could not immediately be reached for comment. — Reuters
