As China’s women’s national football team celebrates its 6-0 win over Argentina in the International Women’s Football Tournament in Brasilia, pictures depicting professional female footballers’ training and living condition are stirring controversy among web users in their home country.
The photos, taken by athletes competing at the national women’s football championship in Qiangyuan, Guangdong, were uploaded to Weibo on December 11, showing the shockingly poor accommodation they received at the training base. Two days later, more photos of the playing field emerged on the microblogging site.
One of the photos shows the substandard food offered to the competitors and a hog the girls ran into while taking a walk.
The actual football field, surrounded by woods, is just a clearing with hand-drawn sidelines.
The bench area has has only a few benches, meters in front of people's houses.
Instead of moving rubbish to a waste site, workers just burned it by the pitch.
This precarious-looking “stage” teetering on top of bricks is supposed to be the photographers' area.
The scoreboard is controlled manually by local middle-aged women who serve as ball boys when the game is on.
The living conditions of the players is also worrisome: three to four girls have to share a room; the toilet is broken; the girls are so used to enduring poor accommodation that they even bring their own clothes dryer.
The players take to hanging their jerseys on tree branches and handrails.
There are no ambulance, stretchers or extra medical personnel in addition to the team doctor.
Nicknamed the “steel roses,” the girls on China's national women's football team were once praised as national heroes, especially after taking second place at Women’s World Cup in 1999. Although past its most glorious days, the team currently still holds a FIFA ranking of 14th, 74 places higher than its male counterpart, who are no stranger to public criticism and scandals.
According to a survey, 75 percent of female football players are unsatisfied with their income. Most lead players only earn RMB2,000-3,000 a month. Some can’t even afford football shoes.
Even league champions Shanghai haven’t received all the payment they were promised, one of the team members reveals.
[images via NetEase]
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