Chinese TV pulls Arsenal game

LONDON (AP):

Chinese television pulled coverage of Arsenal’s English Premier League (EPL) match against Manchester City yesterday after Mesut Özil, a forward for the London club, criticised Beijing’s brutal mass crackdown on ethnic Muslims in the country.

China is the EPL’s most lucrative overseas broadcast market, with the rights sold for US$700 million in a three-year deal that runs through 2022.

But instead of the sports channel of Chinese state television showing Özil featuring in Arsenal’s 3-0 loss to City, it scheduled a delayed recording of Tottenham’s 2-1 victory over Wolverhampton from earlier yesterday, according to information from the network.

Streaming service PPTV.com also cancelled a feed of Arsenal’s match, which featured Özil for almost an hour before he was substituted amid cheers and some jeers from his own fans. Özil reacted by kicking his gloves on the touchline.

“How he reacts is up to him, and I’ll deal with it,” interim Arsenal manager Freddie Ljungberg said. “We’ll see what it means for the future, but, of course, we want players to behave the right way.”

Ljungberg would not discuss the specifics of Özil’s social-media post from Friday that embroiled Arsenal in controversy in China.

“The China thing is political,” Ljungberg said, “and I’ll leave that to the club.”

Arsenal used a post on Chinese social-media network Weibo to dissociate itself from Özil’s action.

“The content he expressed is entirely Özil’s personal opinion,” the north London club said. “As a football club, Arsenal always adheres to the principle of not being involved in politics.”

Özil added to condemnation of the detention of more than 1 million Uighurs and other minorities in so-called re-education camps in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, where they are subjected to political indoctrination, torture, beatings, and food deprivation, as well as denial of religious and linguistic freedom.

A social-media post from Özil on Friday denounced China for burning Qurans, closing mosques and the killing of religious scholars. The Arsenal player complained that “Muslims stay quiet”.

The Chinese Football Association expressed “great indignation and disappointment” at Özil’s comments, according to the Global Times newspaper published by the ruling Communist Party.

China’s control tactics

China’s government increasingly uses the threat of loss of access to the country’s growing market as leverage to try to control what companies, universities, and others say or do abroad about political issues.

Arsenal will be hoping to avoid the backlash faced by the Houston Rockets earlier this year after the NBA team’s general manager, Daryl Morey, tweeted support for anti-government protesters in Hong Kong, angering fans and officials in China.

The tweet was deleted soon after it was posted, and Rockets owner and billionaire casino and restaurant owner Tilman Fertitta quickly rebuked his General Manager with a tweet saying that Morey does not speak for the team.

The tweet caused some Chinese corporations to suspend relationships with the NBA.