Chinese soccer is a mess. There's the difficult task of qualifying for the 2006 World Cup against Hong Kong with the dirty "collusion" allegations still floating around; but even more interesting is the implosion of China's top soccer league following a protest by one of the major clubs, Beijing Hyundai.

Now that saga has reached a tentative conclusion. Firstly the club played their League match on the weekend despite previous threats to withdraw. The official line is the club has made peace with the CFA now that the referee at the centre of the storm has been suspended for the rest of the season and a session adressing the future of the CFA is to be held. Additionally the CFA has been forced to open its books to scrutiny by the Premier League clubs after allegations of corruption and botched commercial deals. More pressure is emerging in China, for example this opinion piece in the China Daily or this from Xinhua, on the CFA.

What is most interesting in this whole debacle is the pressure of free markets is having on an official body. In times past the CFA would never have come under such pressure for corruption and incompetence but with so much money now at stake, the clubs involved have started to defend their rights and push for greater disclosure and a more open CFA. It is a clear example where incompetence and corruption was having such an impact that the people involve announced they weren't going to take it any more, and staretd to fight back.

Where soccer leads, could the rest of China one day follow?