The Basketball Association of China (ABC) disqualified two teams, the Jiangsu Dragons and the Shanghai Sharks, from the 2022-2023 season for their "lack of competitive effort", in what appears to be a case of match-fixing.
The ABC Ethics Commission confirmed in a statement that the Shanghai Sharks officially showed "negative competition" on April 11, in the second game of the series that faced them against the Jiangsu Dragons, a team that demonstrated "lack of effort competitive" in the third game, played on April 14. In the third game, Jiangsu "had incredible turnovers" in the fourth quarter, leading to their 108-104 defeat, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The ABC ruled that the behavior of both teams "seriously violated the spirit of sportsmanship" and imposed their disqualification for the remainder of the season and a fine of 5 million yuan (727,000 dollars, 663,000 euros). In addition, the coaches of the Jiangsu Dragons and the Shanghai Sharks will be disabled for the next three and five years, respectively.
The president of ABC, the historic NBA player Yao Ming, expressed his sadness at what happened, while assuring that basketball in the Asian country "must learn from what happened and make a change."
The Shanghai Sharks had to play the next round against the Shenzhen Aviators, who will automatically qualify due to the disqualification of their rival.
In recent days, numerous Internet users from the Asian country accused the two teams of fixing the matches, which caused the hashtag "fake basketball" to become one of the most popular on the Weibo social network, equivalent to Twitter, censored in China.
