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      Do Sports Still Need China?

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      Global outrage, broken contracts and shifting politics could change the calculus for leagues and teams that once raced to do business in China.The rewards for international sports leagues and organizations are plain: lucrative broadcast deals, bountiful sponsorship opportunities, millions of new consumers.The risks are obvious, too: the compromising of values, the public relations nightmares, the general atmosphere of opacity.For years, they have surveyed the Chinese market, measured these factors and come up with the same basic math: that the benefits of doing business there outweighed the possible downsides. The N.B.A. might blunder into a humbling political crisis based on a single tweet, and rich contracts might vanish into thin air overnight, but China, the thinking went, was a potential gold mine. And for that reason leagues, teams, governing bodies and athletes contorted themselves for any chance to tap into it.But recent events may have changed that thinking for good, and raised a new question: Is doing business in China still worth it?The sports world received a hint last week of a changing dynamic when the WTA — one of many organizations that have worked aggressively over the last decade to establish a foothold in the Chinese market — threatened to stop doing business there altogether if the government failed to confirm the safety of Peng Shuai. Peng, a top women’s tennis player once hailed by state media as “our Chinese princess,” disappeared from public life recently after accusing a prominent former government official of sexual assault.The WTA’s threat was remarkable not only for its reasoning, but for its rarity.WTA Tour officials, fellow players and human rights groups spoke up for Peng Shuai after China tried to censor her accusations of sexual abuse.Demetrius Freeman for The New York TimesBut as China’s president, Xi Jinping, governs through an increasingly heavy-handed personal worldview, and as China’s aggressive approach to geopolitics and its record on human rights make the country, and those who do business there, a growing target for a chorus of critics and activists, sports leagues and organizations may soon be forced to re-evaluate their longstanding assumptions.That sort of direct confrontation is already taking place elsewhere: Lawmakers in the European Union recently called for stronger ties with Taiwan, an island China claims as its territory, only months after European officials blocked a landmark commercial agreement over human rights concerns and labeled China a “totalitarian threat.”For most sports organizations, the WTA’s position remains an outlier. Sports organizations with multimillion-dollar partnerships in China — whether the N.B.A., England’s Premier League, Formula 1 auto racing or the International Olympic Committee — have mostly brushed aside concerns.Some partners have acquiesced at times to China’s various demands. A few have issued humbling apologies. The I.O.C., in perhaps the most notable example, has seemed to go out of its way to avoid angering China, even as Peng, a former Olympian, went missing.But an evolving public opinion may get harder for sports organizations to ignore. A report this year from the Pew Research Center, for instance, found that 67 percent of Americans had negative feelings toward China, up from 46 percent in 2018. Similar shifts have occurred in other Western democracies.Mark Dreyer, a sports analyst for China Sports Insider, based in Beijing, said the WTA’s standoff with China represented an escalation in the “them or us” mentality that appeared to be forming between China and its Western rivals.The threat from the WTA, then, could serve as a sign of showdowns to come, in which case, Dreyer said, China could lose out.“Frankly, China is a big market, but the rest of the world is still bigger,” he said. “And if people have to choose, they’re not going to choose China.”To some experts, then, the WTA’s extraordinary decision to confront China head-on might actually signal a turning point, rather than an aberration.“The calculation is one part political, one part moral, one part economic,” said Simon Chadwick, a professor of international sports business at Emlyon Business School in Lyon, France. He said that the WTA’s dispute with China reflected the “red line” growing between the country and many of its Western counterparts, with the sides seeming more entrenched in diverging sociopolitical ideologies.Some sports organizations are deepening their ties to China. Formula 1, for example, just extended its contract for the Chinese Grand Prix, keeping the race in Shanghai through 2025.Greg Baker/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“I think we are rapidly heading toward the kind of terrain where organizations, businesses, and sponsors will be forced to choose one side or another,” Chadwick added.The WTA’s own about-face was stark. Only three years ago, the organization was heralding a deal that made Shenzhen, China, the new home of its tour finals for a decade starting in 2019, accepting promises of a new stadium and a whopping $14 million annual prize pool. In 2019, just before the pandemic, the WTA held nine tournaments in China.Fast forward to last week, when Steve Simon, the WTA’s chief executive, said in an interview with The New York Times that if China did not agree to an independent inquiry of Peng’s claims, that the tour would be willing to cease operations in the country.“There are too many decisions being made today that aren’t based on what is simply right and wrong,” Simon said. “And this is the right thing to do, 100 percent.”The language raised eyebrows around the sports world.“They are not the first ones to have had a run-in with China,” Zhe Ji, the director of Red Lantern, a sports marketing company that does work in China, said about the WTA. “But I haven’t seen anybody else come out with as strong a wording as that.”The run-ins have proliferated in only the last few years.The N.B.A., for instance, was seen as a pioneer when it played its first games in China in 2004, including a game featuring Yao Ming, the Chinese star for the Houston Rockets. The ensuing years brought prosperity for the league there, and relative peace. It was praised for its patient, culturally sensitive approach to building there. Then, in 2019, Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Rockets at the time, tweeted in support of pro-democracy protests taking place in Hong Kong, and in the blink of an eye a relationship that had developed over several years imploded.Merchandise for the Rockets — China’s favorite team in China’s favorite sports league — was removed from stores, and the team’s games were no longer broadcast on television. Fans took to Chinese social media to attack the league. Then, when the N.B.A. issued what was widely taken as an apology, it sparked an almost equally robust wave of criticism back home. (The N.B.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.)“The NBA should have anticipated the challenges of doing business in a country run by a repressive single party government, including by being prepared to stand in strong defense of the freedom of expression of its employees, players, and affiliates across the globe,” read a letter sent to the league by a bipartisan group of United States lawmakers.The N.B.A. saw its brand battered in China and at home after a team executive waded into Chinese politics on Twitter.Tyrone Siu/ReutersThe letter’s signees — a cross-party group that included Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a Democrat, and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican — accused the N.B.A. of compromising American values and effectively supporting Chinese propaganda.“If you’re angering both sides, it means there is no middle ground, which I think was significant,” said Dreyer, the Beijing-based sports analyst.Like other observers, Dreyer suggested the WTA’s stance was potentially game-changing. But he noted, too, that it was possibly easier for the WTA to defy China than it had been for, say, the N.B.A., for two reasons.First, because the pandemic had already forced the WTA to cancel its events in China for the near future, the tour was not necessarily forfeiting big sums of money in the immediate term. (Severing ties with China permanently would of course require the WTA Tour to replace tens of millions of dollars in revenue and prize money.) Second, because China has essentially erased any mention of Peng and the ensuing international outcry from its news and social media, the WTA’s brand may not take much of a hit there. Many in China simply do not know about Peng, or the WTA’s response.“With the N.B.A., they were burning jerseys,” Dreyer said. “You don’t have that reaction against tennis.”To be sure, big sports leagues that have deep, longstanding interests in China, barring some extreme turn of events, will not exit the market any time soon. And some organizations are still going all-in.The I.O.C., which will stage the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing in February, has tuned out any and all calls from critics for the organization to make some statement about China’s human rights abuses, including the treatment of religious minorities in the country’s western regions.The Beijing Olympics marked the start of its 100-days-out countdown on Wednesday.Andrea Verdelli/Getty ImagesFormula 1 this month announced that it had signed a deal to continue the Chinese Grand Prix, an annual race in Shanghai, through 2025, and the Premier League appears to have patched over a crisis that began when a top player infuriated China by criticizing its human rights record.Some in the industry, though, have already noticed a change, a slight cooling, among other companies pondering business in the sports market there.“With increased political tension and the complications of doing business in China, I’ve seen more companies focus back on Europe and the U.S., where the reward may not be as large but the risk is much less,” said Lisa Delpy Neirotti, an international sports marketing consultant and director of the sports management master’s program at George Washington University.That dynamic has been vivid in European soccer, which had collectively seemed to view China as a sort of El Dorado five years ago, but now seems to be coming to terms with reality after a series of disappointments. In Italy, Inter Milan, one of that country’s most storied clubs, is in a tailspin after its Chinese owner, Suning, a consumer goods company, became engulfed in a major financial crisis. The team has been forced to sell player contracts to meet its payroll.In England, the Premier League remains in litigation with a broadcast partner that failed to pay up after signing a record-breaking television deal to broadcast games in China. A new partner is paying a fraction of the previous agreement, leaving some clubs disillusioned.Manchester City’s Bernardo Silva in Shanghai in 2019. The Premier League had to find a new television partner in China after a record-setting deal collapsed.Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Over the last five years there had been a perception in the West that China is there for the taking — there’s lots of money, economic growth is strong, a growing middle class, disposal income, and we can go feast on this,” Chadwick said. “What has happened for some sports organizations in the West is that they have not found China as lucrative as they imagined, and they have also found China incredibly difficult to do business with.”The difficulties appear to be deepening.Half a decade ago, the Chinese government, emboldened about sports after hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, announced plans to create an $800 billion domestic sports industry, the largest in the world. That captured the attention of Western sports organizations.What many organizations did not anticipate, though, were the peculiarities of the Chinese business landscape, the extent to which politics is woven through all aspects of China’s economy, and the growing spirit of nationalism under its increasingly autocratic president, Xi.“I absolutely think over the long term that major sporting events will be hesitant moving forward to schedule out in China right now,” said Thomas A. Baker III, a sports management professor at the University of Georgia who has done extensive work in China. “The China that welcomed the world in 2008 is not the same China that people are doing business with in 2021.”Tariq Panja More

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      in Soccer

      Who Is Afghanistan's Soccer Team Playing For?

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      BELEK, Turkey — Anoush Dastgir may be the hardest-working man in soccer, but by Saturday, his job had taken a toll.Dastgir, the coach of Afghanistan’s men’s national team, was sitting in an empty restaurant at the hotel where he and his team were preparing for an exhibition match against Indonesia. It was 11 p.m., and Dastgir was battling what sounded like a heavy cold. Which wasn’t surprising, given he now had a dozen jobs to do.Coaching a national soccer team is tough enough anywhere, but coaching Afghanistan has long had unique challenges.It is one of the world’s poorest countries and a place where civil war and Taliban rule once kept the national team from playing a game for almost two decades. The country is considered so unsafe, in fact, that FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, has long banned its teams from playing at home. Most of the time, that hardly mattered: Afghanistan is ranked 152nd in the world. And it has never qualified for a major tournament.Still, circumstances got even harder over the summer, when the Taliban swept back into Kabul, the Afghan government collapsed and its president, Ashraf Ghani — not to mention tens of thousands of his countrymen and women — fled the country.Afghanistan’s coach, Anoush Dastgir. He arranged his team’s friendly in Turkey on his own, and appealed to FIFA to help pay for it.Dastgir lost access to part of his team and half his staff in the chaos. Two staff members are now in refugee camps in Qatar. Two others are in Afghanistan, eager to leave. His roster is populated almost entirely by Afghan refugees, or the sons of refugees, who have found shelter in the Netherlands, Germany, the United States, Sweden and beyond over the years, fleeing the various conflicts that have afflicted Afghanistan since the 1980s. But a few still spend time in Afghanistan, and this year even doing that became a concern.One of Dastgir’s most important players, Noor Husin, who left for Britain when he was six, was in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif in July as the Taliban approached. “I was terrified to be honest,” he said. “Because every day there was news, they’re getting closer, they’re in the outskirts of the city. And I was thinking, surely not. You just didn’t think it was going to happen.”Husin managed to get to Kabul and scramble out of the country, but he — like many of his teammates — thought the national team was finished. “Everyone thought, this is the end, the end of everything,” he said.Dastgir, though, was determined to keep it alive, to have it continue to serve, he said, as a rare symbol of unity in a country often divided along ethnic or linguistic lines. So a few weeks ago, he picked up the phone and arranged a friendly match — the first since the Taliban took over — against Indonesia. That was the easy part. He then had to find a site for the game, arrange flights and visas for players and source coronavirus tests for everyone. With the Afghan soccer federation’s bank account frozen, Dastgir successfully petitioned FIFA for help financing the trip..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}With no kit man, Dastgir also had to ship 450 pounds of training gear himself, and then persuade his brother-in-law to help him wash it. He bought soccer balls, arranged referees and — without a communications team — promoted the game on his private social media accounts. He even negotiated a broadcasting contract to make sure the maximum number of people back in Afghanistan could watch the match. And then, with all that done, he still had to find time to coach the team.But as midnight neared in the hotel restaurant on Saturday, there was still one important issue to resolve: Which flag would the team fly?A Young LeaderAt 31, Dastgir is one of the youngest coaches in world soccer. Born in Kabul, he escaped the country’s civil war with his family shortly after Soviet forces left Afghanistan in 1989. He was just a few months old, and grew up in Pakistan and then India before settling in the Netherlands.In Europe, he learned Dutch and was scouted by a leading club, NEC Nijmegen. He was eventually called up for the Afghan national team but appeared in a handful of games before a knee injury ended his playing career.Afghan players at training in Belek, Turkey, and Faysal Sheyesteh, whose many tattoos include one of a helicopter and a fighter jet raining red hearts on Kabul’s skyline.“My coaches said, ‘You have to start coaching,’ because as a player I was kind of leader of the team,” he said. His first opportunity to lead Afghanistan came in 2016, when a foreign coach didn’t turn up for a game amid a contract dispute.“The players said, ‘I think Anoush can handle it,’” Dastgir recalled. He lost that game but the team had played well. The next time the post came open, in 2018, he was given the job..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}By then, he was on the hunt for Afghan players. Many were discovered among the vast Afghan diaspora, refugees and their children spread around the world. When a match against Palestine in Kabul was arranged in 2018, the first international game to be played in Afghanistan in years, Dastgir called in many of his discoveries.“I wanted to have these players in Afghanistan to feel the country, to see the people, because most of them are born outside the country,” he said. “So if you tell them play for your country, they are like, ‘What is that?’”Even now, the team’s place as a visible multicultural institution shows up in training sessions.Instructions were shouted out in Dutch and Pashto. Encouragement was offered in German, Dari and English. Sometimes, Dastgir switched languages midsentence. “My first captain is Tajik,” he said. “My second captain is Pashtun. My third captain is Hazara.” Two of his players, the brothers Adam and David Najem, were born in New Jersey.Between bus rides, hotel down time and fans’ cheering the players’ names, the week had the feel of any international match.Still, as the match neared, the questions of the flag and the anthem remained unresolved. This was not a decision to be taken lightly. The Taliban’s white flag, with the Shahada — the Muslim declaration of faith — printed on it, has replaced the green, red and black tricolor over Afghanistan’s presidential palace. And as the Taliban have instituted a broad ban on music, the national anthem has effectively been outlawed.Dastgir knew that playing it and flying the old flag would be controversial; the country’s men’s cricket team was rebuked by a Taliban leader after doing so at the Twenty20 World Cup. He knew his choice might cost him his job or worse.“I’m not afraid of getting fired,” Dastgir said. “I’m the head coach of the national team of 37 million Afghans. I’m not the national team coach of the Taliban regime, or the regime of Ghani. We never did it for the government. We did it for the people.”Cheers Far From HomeNo one in Afghanistan’s camp was sure if any supporters would actually come to watch them play in Belek, a coastal town near Antalya.Stadium officials worried about coronavirus restrictions were assuaged when Dastgir agreed to pay for security out of his own pocket. There was also the issue of whether the Turkish police might prove to be a deterrent. At least 300,000 Afghan refugees and migrants have found shelter in Turkey in recent years, and many are undocumented. But as the daylight faded and kickoff approached, hundreds of fans lined up outside the stadium gate.Afghanistan’s game against Indonesia had been arranged on short notice. A late goal delivered a 1-0 victory, and set off celebrations behind the goal and in the stands.“I want to show I am Afghan,” said Mursal, an 18-year-old student wrapped in a large Afghan flag but wary enough to decline to give her last name. She had fled to Turkey four years ago, after her father was killed in Afghanistan, and had found few opportunities to wave the Afghan flag since she arrived. “It’s our flag. You don’t have another flag. Just this flag, and no one can change it.”Six hundred supporters — the limit agreed upon with stadium officials — soon streamed in, filling the stadium’s one long grandstand.A few minutes before kickoff, the teams lined up at midfield. In front of them, two of Afghanistan’s substitutes unfurled a large green, red and black flag, the one Dastgir had carried with him to Belek. The anthem played, a moment beamed to millions of Afghans back home. No one was there to take the traditional prematch photo: The squad’s official photographer escaped to Portugal months ago.The game was frantic, soundtracked by the constant noise of the Afghan fans. Dastgir, dressed all in black, calmly gave tactical instructions. Late in the second half, he summoned Omid Popalzay, a Dutch-raised midfielder last seen playing in Poland’s fourth tier. In the 85th minute, a few moments after entering the game as a substitute, Popalzay scored. Minutes later, the final whistle blew. Afghanistan had won, and the fans erupted with joy.One fan jumped 12 feet down onto the running track surrounding the field hoping to get a selfie, but he was intercepted by the police and frog-marched back by his neck. One player, Norlla Amiri, climbed onto the shoulders of a teammate so his infant son could be passed down to him.Norlla Amiri climbed onto a teammate’s shoulders to collect his young son during the celebrations.Other fans threw their cellphones to the players, asking for selfies. Many wanted pictures with Faysal Shayesteh, a 30-year-old midfielder who has had a globe-trotting professional career since moving to the Netherlands as a boy.Nearly all Afghan fans knew Shayesteh because of his tattoos, including the one across his chest that shows Kabul’s skyline underneath a fighter jet and an attack helicopter, each bombarding the city with red hearts. Above his left breast were two GPS coordinates: The first is for Hengelo, the city in eastern Holland where he grew up. The other is Kabul, where he was born.“If I talk about it I get emotional,” he said, holding back tears. “Because I know what the people in Afghanistan are going through. And I know this is the only thing that makes them happy, winning a game for the national team. This is the only thing they have, so I’m very happy.”Dastgir watched it all unfold from the back, filming some of it on his phone to post on his Instagram account. No one had done more to make the moment happen than him. More

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      in Tennis

      Where Is Peng Shuai? The Question the I.O.C. Is Too Weak To Ask.

      by

      Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai went missing after publicly accusing a former government official of sexual assault. Tennis stars, led by Naomi Osaka, and the WTA have all asked #whereispengshuai?Where is Peng Shuai?That’s the question the International Olympic Committee and its president, Thomas Bach, should be shouting right now — loud, demanding, and aimed squarely at the leadership in China, set to host the Beijing Games in February. But instead of firm demands, we’re hearing not much more than faint, servile whispers from Olympic leadership.Peng, 35, a Chinese tennis star and three-time Olympian, has been missing since Nov. 2, when she used social media to accuse Zhang Gaoli, 75, a former vice premier of China, of sexually assaulting her at his home three years ago. She also described having had an on-and-off consensual relationship with Zhang.Peng wrote that the assault occurred after Zhang invited her to play tennis at his home. “I was so scared that afternoon,” she noted. “I never gave consent, crying the entire time.”“I feel like a walking corpse,” she added.The message was quickly deleted from China’s government-controlled social media site.There have been no verifiable signs of Peng since — no videos or photographs to prove she is safe. Instead, all the outside world has seen is a stilted message, said to have been written by Peng and sent to the WTA, in response to its demand for an inquiry into her allegations. Peng’s supposed response, released by China’s state-owned broadcaster on Wednesday, immediately raised concerns.“Hello everyone this is Peng Shuai,” it read, before calling her accusation of sexual assault, made just weeks ago, untrue. “I’m not missing, nor am I unsafe. I’ve been resting at home and everything is fine. Thank you again for caring about me.”It reads like a message from a hostage, a natural concern given the Chinese government’s long history of using force and heavy-handed pressure to crush dissent and flatten those it deems guilty of going against the state.So, what has been the I.O.C.’s response to a potentially endangered Olympian? A neutered, obsequious statement.“We have seen the latest reports and are encouraged by assurances that she is safe,” read an official I.O.C. declaration on Thursday.What world of fantasy is the I.O.C. living in? Given China’s history, we can reasonably assume the latest missive supposedly written by Peng is a fraud. Peng dared to speak up with force and candor, but not the I.O.C., a Swiss-based organization with a history of cowing to dictators that goes back to Adolf Hitler and the 1936 Summer Games.After some criticism, the committee followed up with another statement, hinting its representatives were talking to the Chinese.“Experience shows that quiet diplomacy offers the best opportunity to find a solution for questions of such nature,” it said, offering no evidence of prior success. “This explains why the IOC will not comment any further at this stage.”Responding to a message purportedly written by Peng, the I.O.C. said in a statement, “We have seen the latest reports and are encouraged by assurances that she is safe.” Valery Gache/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBach and the wide cast of leadership at the I.O.C. typically use every chance possible to claim the Olympic mission stands for humanity’s highest ideals. They say all Olympic athletes are part of a family. Peng was among those ranks in 2008, 2012 and 2016. Once an Olympian, they say, always an Olympian.That’s an admirable idea, but it gets tossed to the wayside when the stakes grow too high.Looming are Beijing’s Winter Games, fueled by huge fees for broadcasting rights and corporate sponsorships and the billions spent by the Chinese government in an effort to gain respect on the international stage.Do Bach and the I.O.C. have the guts to stand up for one of their own and call out the dictatorial host of its next showcase for a frightening human rights abuse?The answer, so far at least, is no.Contrary to the official I.O.C. statement, nothing is encouraging about this situation.Not if you know the long history of Chinese authoritarianism. Not if you know how it has been hammering at dissent and silencing anyone with enough clout to threaten national order — including prominent cultural and business figures like Jack Ma, founder of the internet firm Alibaba.Not if you know about how China has suppressed protest in Hong Kong and Tibet, or if you pay attention to the treatment of Muslim minorities — deemed genocide by the United Nations and dozens of nations, including the United States — despite Chinese denials.As predicted by critics, or anyone watching with even a bit of common sense, the I.O.C. finds itself compromised. That’s the cost of cozying up to authoritarian hosts like China, which held the Summer Games in 2008, and Russia, the site of the 2014 Winter Games.Compare the typical fecklessness of Bach and the I.O.C. with the uncompromising approach taken by the women’s pro tennis tour, which has been unafraid to stand up boldly for Peng, a former world No. 1 in doubles.“I have a hard time believing that Peng Shuai actually wrote the email we received or believe what is being attributed to her,” wrote Steve Simon, chief executive of the WTA Tour, in a statement. “Peng Shuai displayed incredible courage in describing an allegation of sexual assault against a former top official in the Chinese government.”Simon continued: “Peng Shuai must be allowed to speak freely, without coercion or intimidation from any source. Her allegation of sexual assault must be respected, investigated with full transparency and without censorship.The voices of women need to be heard and respected, not censored nor dictated to.”That’s putting people over profit. That’s guts. Professional tennis in China is a lucrative, fast-growing market. The men’s and women’s tours hold high-profile tournaments there, and the WTA Finals are slated for Shenzhen in 2022.Given the way female tennis players have long led on matters of human rights, it is no surprise that Billie Jean King, Serena Williams, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova have stood strongly for Peng. And it is no surprise younger stars have followed suit, led by Naomi Osaka, the torch bearer in the Tokyo Games this past summer, who has added her significant stature to the chorus asking “Where is Peng Shuai?”But Bach and the I.O.C., peddlers of Olympic mythology, have yet to join that chorus. Peng Shuai is part of the Olympic family, but the I.O.C. overlords lack the spine to stand up for one of their own. More

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      China's Peng Shuai Makes #MeToo Claim Against Zhang Gaoli

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      Peng Shuai’s accusation against Zhang Gaoli takes the country’s budding #MeToo movement to the top echelons of the Communist Party for the first time.Peng Shuai, the professional tennis star, publicly accused a former vice premier of China of sexual assault, igniting an online firestorm of attention to a #MeToo allegation that for the first time touched the pinnacles of Communist Party power.Ms. Peng made the allegation in a post on Tuesday night on her verified account on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. In it, she described an assault that began an on-and-off consensual relationship with Zhang Gaoli, who from 2012 to 2017 served on the party’s Politburo Standing Committee, the top ruling body in China.The post was removed within minutes, but the allegations swirled through the country’s heavily controlled internet, fueled by the fame of the accuser and the accused. That kept the censors inside China’s Great Firewall scrambling.Searches of her name and even the word “tennis” appeared to be blocked, reflecting the extraordinary sensitivity within China of discussing misconduct by party leaders.“The impact of #MeToo has been accumulating for three years,” Lü Pin, an activist who founded the now-banned Chinese online forum Feminist Voices, said in a telephone interview from New Jersey, where she now lives. “When the first women began talking about their experiences three years ago, no one could have imagined that it would reach this high level.”Ms. Peng’s accusations could not be corroborated. In her post, she acknowledged that she would be unable to produce evidence of her accusation, suggesting at one point that Mr. Zhang had expressed worries that she might record their encounters.She could not be reached for comment. The State Council, China’s governing body, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The authorities have charged government officials with sexual misconduct before, often in conjunction with corruption investigations. Never before, though, has an accusation of sexual misconduct been leveled publicly against as senior a political leader as Mr. Zhang.“These allegations are not shocking in substance but are shocking in the target,” Bill Bishop, the founder of Sinocism, a newsletter on Chinese affairs, wrote.Zhang Gaoli, the former vice premier, in 2014. As a member of the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, Mr. Zhang was once one of the most powerful people in the country.Kim Kyung-Hoon/ReutersAn economist by education, Mr. Zhang, now 75, rose through the ranks of the party and government. He served as governor of Shandong, the coastal province, and then as party secretary in Tianjin, the provincial-level port city on the Bohai Sea. As vice premier from 2013 to 2018, he was one of seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, headed then, as now, by China’s leader, Xi Jinping.“I know that for someone of your eminence, Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, you’ve said that you’re not afraid,” Ms. Peng wrote in her post, “but even if it’s just me, like an egg hitting a rock, or a moth to the flame, courting self-destruction, I’ll tell the truth about you.”Women in media, at universities and in the private sector in China have all come forward with accusations of sexual assault and harassment — only to face pushback in the courts and censorship online.In China, many women say, there remains an ingrained patriarchal tradition of using positions in business or government to gain sexual favors from subordinates or other women. In 2016, the country’s top prosecuting agency listed the exchange of “power for sex recklessly” as one of six traits of senior officials accused of corruption.The accuser in another high-profile harassment case, Zhou Xiaoxuan, posted a note expressing sympathy for Ms. Peng, illustrating how widely the accusation became known despite the censorship. “I hope she’s safe and sound,” she wrote.Ms. Zhou, who in 2018 accused a prominent television anchor of sexual harassment four years earlier, emerged as a trailblazer of China’s fledgling #MeToo movement and also a victim of the social and legal challenges women who come forward face. In September, a court in Beijing ruled that she had “tendered insufficient evidence” to prove her case against the anchor, Zhu Jun, who has sued her for slander.Mr. Zhang retired in 2018, when, according to Ms. Peng’s account, the two resumed a relationship that had begun when he served in Tianjin, which would have been between 2007 and 2012. She said he had first assaulted her after inviting her to play tennis with him and his wife. “I never consented that afternoon, crying all the time,” she wrote, not specifying when exactly the assault occurred.At the time she was soaring through a professional career that would propel her to a No. 1 ranking in doubles with the Women’s Tennis Association in 2014 and as high as 14th as a singles player.With her partner, Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan, she won the doubles championship at Wimbledon in 2013 and again at the French Open in 2014. That year, playing singles, she reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open. She remains ranked 189th in singles and 248th in doubles, last playing at the Qatar Total Open in February 2020, according to the association.She was one of the athletes who broke out of the country’s sports system, which mandates that most train under state coaches and give most of their earnings, even from endorsements, back to the state. She was one of the first to reach an agreement to allow her to train and travel by herself and keep a larger share of the earnings.Her post continued to circulate in screen shots and other messages even after it was deleted, a testament to the resonance accusations like hers has in Chinese society.“The censorship is not working,” Ms. Lü, the activist, said. She added that while it was important that people were discussing the issue, “changing policy is the most difficult part.”Chris Buckley More

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      In China's Super League, Everyone Seems to Be Losing

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      Chinese teams once embraced ambition and overspending in a bold attempt to reshape their sport. Now they don’t even play games.The emails and letters complaining about unpaid salaries have been stacking up for months.Some claim losses in the thousands of dollars. Others seek to recover quite a bit more. But a few of the pleas arriving at the Zurich offices of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, like those involving a handful of well-known South American players, are in the millions.What the FIFA officials collecting the claims have noticed, though, is that a surprising number are coming from one place: players and coaches at clubs in China. And they fear the flow is about to get worse.China’s top soccer league — not so long ago heralded as the sport’s new frontier thanks to a half-decade of powerful support, ambitious owners and an era of untrammeled spending that lured top players with outsized salaries — is having an existential crisis. Companies that once spent tens of millions to acquire players now cannot pay their bills. China’s president, who once championed the sport, now faces far more serious priorities. And the country’s top division, the Super League, hasn’t played a game in months.“For sure, some issues like this have happened before,” said David Wu, a sports lawyer in Shanghai. “But not this size.”The shuttered training center at Jiangsu F.C., where acres of pristine fields now sit empty. Jia Shiqing/VCG via Getty ImagesMissing MoneyThe bad news trickled out in waves. In February, China’s defending champion, Jiangsu Suning F.C., was abruptly shuttered by the electronics retailer that owned it, less than four months after the team won the Super League championship.In the time it took to issue a news release, one of the country’s biggest clubs vaporized, leaving its players unpaid and bringing unwelcome attention to a project that had been one of the cornerstones of President Xi Jinping’s effort to transform China from a soccer backwater into one of its superpowers.The collapse at Jiangsu now appears to have been a harbinger of further trouble. The league season has been repeatedly interrupted to accommodate the World Cup qualifying schedule of China’s national team, and now will not resume until December. Until then, clubs will have little or no access to their best players.More recently, doubts have been raised about the continued viability of China’s most successful team, Guangzhou F.C. A cash crunch at its parent company, the real estate conglomerate Evergrande, is so severe that it poses a serious threat to the broader economy.Last week, the team agreed to part company with its coach, the Italian Fabio Cannavaro, one of the highest-paid managers in world soccer. Officials and players on other teams have also agreed to terminate long-term contracts with the understanding that they will be paid for salaries due.Fernando Martins and Renato Augusto, two Brazilian stars on the growing list of players who have filed complaints with FIFA, agreed to such a deal, with millions of dollars at stake. Each was released from his contract by their former club, Beijing Guoan, and they expected their first payments in August.The players say the money never arrived.Officials at FIFA’s dispute resolution chamber say they are analyzing the facts. They have the power to suspend clubs in any country from registering new signings until they have resolved unpaid salary debts. Some Chinese teams appear to be subject to such bans already: A recent report in China said Wuhan F.C., which is owned by another property group, Wuhan Zall Development Holding Co., has been suspended from acquiring new players.Guangzhou F.C. started construction on a 100,000-seat stadium last year. Now, with the club’s owner in financial meltdown, it’s unclear if the team has the money to finish it.Thomas Suen/ReutersThe Brazilian defender Miranda returned to São Paulo when his Chinese club, Jiangsu Suning, suddenly shut down in February.Alexandre Loureiro/ReutersThe Italian coach Fabio Cannavaro led Guangzhou to the Super League title in 2019. Last month, he and the club quietly parted ways.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesYet penalties and transfer bans may not be enough to help others claw back what they are owed. The Brazilian defender Miranda was owed more than $10 million when Jiangsu Suning was closed down. His lawyers face the daunting task of navigating China’s complex legal system in their effort to recover the lost income.At least Miranda, 37, has been able to continue his career: He quickly landed a spot — and a rich new contract — at São Paulo, a team that plays in Brazil’s top division. Such an outcome is unlikely for the dozens of Chinese nationals who have gone unpaid or been cast off by their clubs in recent months.Understand China’s New EconomyCard 1 of 6An economic reshaping. More

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      What Emma Raducanu Means for a More Complex Britain

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      Emma Raducanu, 18, galvanized the nation with her triumph in the U.S. Open, drawing congratulations from royalty and inspiring pride in her hometown outside London.LONDON — At long last, Britain got the outpouring of national jubilation it has craved this summer, not from a men’s soccer team that narrowly missed sports immortality but from a young woman with a radiant smile, Emma Raducanu, who stormed from obscurity to win the U.S. Open tennis title on Saturday.The straight-set victory of Ms. Raducanu, 18, over Leylah Fernandez, a 19-year-old Canadian, drew an eruption of cheers from crowds that gathered to watch the match at pubs in her hometown, Bromley, and at the nearby tennis club that set her on an improbable path to Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York City.“The atmosphere is buzzing,” said Dave Cooke, manager of The Parklangley Club, where Ms. Raducanu trained for several years, starting when she was 6. The day after her victory, members brimmed with pride, recounting how she returned after competing at Wimbledon for a practice session.“Just to watch her train was phenomenal,” said a member, Julie Slatter, 54. “You just know she’s going to take it all the way.”Queen Elizabeth lost no time in congratulating the new champion for “a remarkable achievement at such a young age,” which she said was a “testament to your hard work and dedication.” Looking slightly dazzled Ms. Raducanu said, “I’m maybe going to frame that letter or something.”Dave Cooke, the club manager at Parklangley. He said Ms. Raducanu ‘‘strived to meet her dreams.’’Andrew Testa for The New York TimesHer victory made history on multiple counts: She became the first player to win a Grand Slam title from the qualifying rounds and the first Briton to win a Grand Slam singles title since Virginia Wade captured Wimbledon in 1977. Ms. Wade cheered on Ms. Raducanu from the gallery, as did Billie Jean King on the winner’s podium — two champions crowning a new one, and heralding, perhaps, a glittering new era for British tennis.For long-suffering British sports fans, Ms. Raducanu’s victory was also a kind of redemption after the heartbreaking defeat of England’s soccer team in the finals of European championships in July. England snatched defeat from victory in that game when it missed three penalty kicks in the deciding shootout against Italy.But on Saturday, Ms. Raducanu did not let a cut on her leg, from a fall late in the match, stop her from dispatching Ms. Fernandez, 6-4, 6-3, closing things out with an ace before falling to the court in joyous celebration. The timeout she needed to get her leg bandaged was one of the few anxious moments for Ms. Raducanu during a tournament in which she did not drop a single set.Like the national soccer team, Ms. Raducanu embodies the exuberant diversity of British society. Her victory is both a tacit repudiation of the anti-immigration fervor that fueled the Brexit vote in 2016 and a reminder that, whatever its politics, the polyglot Britain of today is a more complicated and interesting place.The daughter of a Romanian father and a Chinese mother, Ms. Raducanu was born in Toronto in 2002. Her family moved to England when she was 2, settling in Bromley, an outer borough of London known for leafy parks and good schools. A serious student, Ms. Raducanu has taken time off from the professional tour to study for exams, crediting her mother for keeping her focused on academics.A shopping street on Sunday in Bromley, Ms. Raducanu’s hometown.Andrew Testa for The New York Times“She’s got where she is because she’s a nice person and put in some hard work and strived to meet her dreams,” Mr. Cooke said.Though he described Ms. Raducanu as part of a generation of younger athletes who have stayed grounded and mentally strong, he said the Grand Slam title would impose new pressures on her.“You achieve something great, you raise your own bar,” he said. “We need to strip back those pressures from her.”Ms. Raducanu first came to national attention in June when she reached the fourth round at Wimbledon before withdrawing, telling coaches she was having trouble breathing.That setback led some commentators, including John McEnroe, to express doubts about her mental fitness, especially at a time when another female star, Naomi Osaka, has spoken openly about her struggles with the pressures of the game. Under the lights in Flushing Meadows, however, Ms. Raducanu silenced her critics. She looked fit, poised, and relentless.Her performance inspired people from all corners of British society. At her old club, girls talked about running into Ms. Raducanu in the school hallways or at local restaurants. Some said they hoped to follow in her footsteps.“We want to go into tennis,” said Yuti Kumar, 14, who attends the same school as Ms. Raducanu, Newstead Wood School, where the graduates include the actress Gemma Chan and Dina Asher-Smith, an Olympic sprinter.The actor Stephen Fry waxed philosophical, saying on Twitter, “Yes, it may be ‘only’ sport, but in that ‘only’ there can be found so much of human joy, despair, glory, disappointment, wonder and hope. A brief flicker of light in a dark world.”The Parklangley Club on Sunday.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesThe Spice Girls kept it simpler. “@EmmaRaducanu that’s Girl Power right there!!” the group tweeted.Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Prince Charles, Prince William and the Manchester United soccer team all sent their congratulations, as did the right-wing Brexit leader, Nigel Farage, who tweeted “a global megastar is born.”David Lammy, a Labour Party member of Parliament who is Black, noted that Mr. Farage once said he would not be comfortable living next to a Romanian (Mr. Farage later expressed regret for the remark). “You have no right to piggyback on her incredible success,” Mr. Lammy posted on Twitter.The dust-up echoed one earlier in the summer when Mr. Lammy faulted Conservative Party members for jumping on the bandwagon of the English soccer team, once it began winning, after having earlier criticized its players for kneeling before games to protest racial and social injustice.In Bromley on Sunday, though, the focus was on a local hero. Many believed her achievement would fuel a surge of interest in tennis playing — and other ambitions — among young people who have struggled to find motivation during the pandemic.“She’s a schoolgirl and she’s from Bromley,” said Jennifer Taylor, 40, sitting outside a pub. “I’m sure if she comes to Bromley, they’ll be a huge welcome for her.”As she prepared to return home, Ms. Raducanu alluded to Britain’s eventful sports summer, in which millions of fans, herself included, took to chanting the theme of the England team, “Football’s coming home.”Posting pictures of herself waving a Union Jack and holding the silver cup of the Open champion, she said, “We are taking her HOMEEE.”“The atmosphere is buzzing,” said the manager of the Parklangley Club, where Ms. Raducanu trained.Andrew Testa for The New York Times More

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      ‘Football Is Like Food’: Afghan Female Soccer Players Find a Home in Italy

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      Members of a team from Herat left behind the lives they had built in Afghanistan in hopes that they can build a future where they can play, and thrive.AVEZZANO, Italy — Two days after Taliban fighters seized Herat, Afghanistan’s third-largest city, the Italian journalist Stefano Liberti received a message via Facebook: “Hi sir, we are in trouble. Can you help us?”The message last month came from Susan, 21, the former captain of Bastan, a women’s soccer team that had once been the subject of a documentary by Mr. Liberti and his colleague Mario Poeta.“Football is like food to me,” Susan would say later, and the fear that she might never play again under Taliban rule, “made me feel as though I was dead.” Like others interviewed in this article, only her first name is used to protect her identity.Thirteen days after she made contact with Mr. Liberti, Susan arrived in Italy along with two of her teammates, their coach and several family members. They touched down at Rome’s main airport after a flight made possible by the two journalists, a Florence-based NGO, several Italian lawmakers and officials in the Italian Defense and Foreign Ministries.The Herat group, 16 people in all, transited through a tent camp run by the Italian Red Cross in Avezzano, in the Apennine Mountains, where more than 1,400 Afghans evacuated to Italy have quarantined in recent weeks.Susan lined up with other Afghan refugees for a clothes distribution at the Red Cross camp.Fabio Bucciarelli for The New York TimesLike so many Afghans, the players left behind the lives they had built in order to make the trip. Susan halted her university studies in English literature to leave the country with her parents, two sisters and a brother.Women were banned from sports during the first Taliban era. Even after the group was ousted from power in 2001, playing sports continued to be a challenge for Afghan women, and for the men who helped them.In “Herat Football Club” the journalists’ 2017 documentary about the team, Najibullah, the coach, said that he had been repeatedly threatened by the Taliban for coaching young women.The Taliban’s return to power has raised fears not only that restrictions on sports will be reimposed, but also that the female athletes who emerged in the past 20 years will be subject to reprisals.Khalida Popal, the former captain of the national women’s team who left Afghanistan in 2011 and now lives in Copenhagen, used social and mainstream media last month to advise women who’d played sports in Afghanistan to shut down their social media accounts, remove any online presence and even burn their uniforms.“They have nobody to go to, to seek protection, to ask for help if they are in danger,” she said in an interview with Reuters. Another Herat player, Fatema, 19, also left behind her university studies, in public administration and policy. She arrived in Italy with a brother, but her father fell ill while they tried to get through the crowds at the Kabul airport, so he and her mother remained behind.“They said to me, ‘You go, go for your future, for football, for your education,’” Fatema said.“Playing football makes me feel powerful and an example for other girls, to show that you can do anything you want to do,” Fatema said. She expressed hope that would be the case in Italy, too. “I want to make it my country now,” she said.Fatema at the tent camp in Avezzano last week. “Playing football makes me feel powerful and an example for other girls,” she said.Fabio Bucciarelli for The New York TimesThe oldest of the three players, Maryam, 23, had already earned a degree in management and had worked as a driving school instructor in Herat. She saw herself as a role model, inspiring young women by example “because of football, because of driving.”“I was an active member of society,” Maryam said, a role she was certain she could not have under the Taliban.Maryam was the only team member to arrive in Italy alone, though she said she was hoping that her family would join her. “It’s hard for me to smile,” she said. “But I hope my future will be good, certainly better than under the Taliban.”The players say that many of their Herat teammates are still in Kabul, hoping to find transit to Australia, where some players on Afghanistan’s women’s national team have been evacuated.Last Friday, the three women and their families were relocated to the Italian city of Florence. In Italy, the national soccer federation, some soccer clubs and the captain of the national team, Sara Gama, have offered their support to the young Afghan players.Administering a coronavirus swab test at the Avezzano camp this month.Fabio Bucciarelli for The New York Times“There’s been a lot of solidarity,” Mr. Liberti, the documentary maker, said.And on a warm afternoon last week, Fatema and Maryam did something they had never done before: They kicked a ball around with a couple of boys.Asked how it felt, Maryam grinned broadly and gave a thumbs up.“It felt good,” added Fatema. “People didn’t look at us as though we had done something wrong.” More

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      In Chaos of Super League Fiasco, Johnson Seizes an Opportunity to Score

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      The British prime minister was able to take the moral high ground by opposing the breakaway European soccer league that proved to be highly unpopular with fans.LONDON — Fans loathed it, politicians opposed it and even Prince William, warned of the damage it risked “to the game we love.”So swift and ferocious was the backlash to a plan to create a new super league for European soccer that on Wednesday six of England’s most famous clubs were in disarray, issuing abject apologies as they disowned the failed breakaway project they had pledged to join.Yet not everyone was a loser. For Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, the crisis has presented a rare opportunity to seize the moral high ground on an issue that matters to many of the voters who helped him to a landslide victory in the 2019 election.Threatening to use any means he could to block the plan, Mr. Johnson positioned himself as the defender of the working-class soccer fans whose forebears created England’s soccer clubs — and the enemy of the billionaire owners who now dominate the English game.“Boris Johnson is a populist by instinct,” said Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King’s College London, adding that the prime minister spotted a political opportunity in a sporting disaster. The backlash to the super league plan was so complete that Mr. Johnson’s opposition was a “no brainer,” he said — the political equivalent of scoring in an open goal.“His only slight gamble in trying to stop it was that he might lose, but it was hard to see how that could happen,” Professor Menon said. Once English and international soccer authorities threatened reprisals against the super league clubs and players, their position was untenable, he said.Prime Minister Boris Johnson has positioned himself as the defender of the working-class soccer fans whose forebears created England’s soccer clubs.Rob Pinney/Getty ImagesOthers believe that there could be risks down the line, however, and that in allowing his government to threaten to put everything on the table to prevent the formation of the new league — even raising the prospect of tampering with the ownership of soccer clubs — Mr. Johnson might have raised expectations that could not be fulfilled.Significantly, the government refused to rule out suggestions that it could legislate over ownership or copy German rules that give fans real control by preventing commercial investors from owning more than 49 percent of clubs.In the short-term, however, the soccer crisis has helped Mr. Johnson by distracting attention away from negative headlines over a lobbying scandal largely centered on one of his predecessors, David Cameron, and his contacts with a current cabinet minister.On Wednesday that issue crept closer to Mr. Johnson with the emergence of text messages he sent to a businessman and Brexit supporter, James Dyson, promising that Mr. Dyson’s employees would not have to pay extra tax if they came to Britain to make ventilators during the early stages of the pandemic. Mr. Dyson’s company announced in 2019 that it would move its headquarters to Singapore, citing growing demand in Asia.In recent months, the successful roll out of vaccines against Covid-19 has revived Mr. Johnson’s fortunes after a succession of missteps last year when the government’s handling of the pandemic faltered.So prevalent is soccer now in Britain’s national life that it cropped up then, too.In April 2020, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, attacked highly paid soccer players, calling on them to “take a pay cut and play their part,” during the pandemic. But within months the government was outmaneuvered by Marcus Rashford, a star player for Manchester United and England.Invoking his own poor childhood, Mr. Rashford galvanized a campaign against child poverty, and ultimately forced Mr. Johnson to change policy over free school meals.This week the boot was on the other foot as Mr. Johnson was able to condemn the super league plans before Mr. Rashford, whose club initially signed up to the proposals.It required no expertise to be “horrified” at the prospect of the super league “being cooked up by a small number of clubs.,” wrote Mr. Johnson in the Sun newspaper.“Football clubs in every town and city and at every tier of the pyramid have a unique place at the heart of their communities, and are an unrivaled source of passionate local pride,” he added.Never a big soccer fan himself, Mr. Johnson framed his opposition to the plan in his belief in competition.Each year the three worst performing clubs are relegated from England’s Premier League — its top domestic tier — while the top ones qualify to play in European competitions the following season. The European Super League proposal would have seen a number of big soccer clubs becoming permanent members — something that Mr. Johnson likened to creating a cartel.In fact, when England’s first Football League was established in 1888 it was on a similar model and its membership was not selected on merit, said Matthew Taylor, professor of history at De Montfort University, Leicester who has written widely on soccer.Yet the furor over the European Super League illustrates the growing role soccer has played in national life in recent decades.An anti-Super League banner hanging from one of the gates of Stamford Bridge stadium in London where Chelsea fans were protesting on Tuesday.Matt Dunham/Associated Press“In the last 15-20 years it seems to be so pervasive and so significant to British culture — very broadly defined — that politicians have to say something,” Professor Taylor said.No longer does it seem odd for politicians and members of the government “to make statements on issues that 40-50 years ago would have been seen as private matters,” he added.That change first became noticeable under Tony Blair’s premiership as the growing success of the English Premier League, combined with the country’s “cool Britannia” branding, gave soccer a great profile.But soccer can be dangerous territory too for politicians. Mr. Cameron was much mocked when he once appeared to forget his long-running claim to support the Birmingham team Aston Villa and seemed to suggest he favored a rival that played in similar colors.Mr. Johnson, who appears to prefer rugby to soccer, has avoided that fate by never declaring his allegiance to any team.But suggestions that the government might legislate to control the ownership of clubs seemed to conflict with Mr. Johnson’s free-market instincts.Although a Saudi Arabian plan to buy the Premier League club Newcastle United ultimately failed, Mr. Johnson promised the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, that he would investigate a holdup to the proposed take over, according to British media reports.“One of the many dishonesties in all this is that it would allow money to corrupt football,” said Professor Menon, referring to the European Super League plan. “Money has already corrupted football. Rich clubs get richer.”The professor said he believed that very little would ultimately change because any substantial intervention would upset the successful operations of the Premier League, and therefore annoy fans.But Professor Taylor pointed to Germany as a successful alternative model, and said that in threatening to intervene in the running of soccer Mr. Johnson might ultimately disappoint some of those who are applauding him now.“Having made such a significant and bold statement, I don’t think this discussion will go away now,” Professor Taylor. More