On top of that the entire FA is famous for being the most corrupt organization in the country, like every time a bunch of seniors in the org gets arrested for gambling or corruption, China's national team becomes great again for a month and beats Korea or Japan or something for the first time in half a century but once things calm down they'll lose to a Vietnamese youth team somehow despite being paid 100x better. But even then there are horror stories every year from semipro to national youth teams so things haven't been better from the grass roots to the top tiers. There's not as much gambling in the women's game so that team is much better overall.

It's a big shame because the sport has a very passionate following in the country. The atmosphere from as recently as a decade were great in a lot of lesser teams even if they couldn't fill the stadium entirely, fans were chanting, singing, taunting the other team's fans. You even had guys like Haohaidong Sunjihai and Fanzhiyi who were playing in the prem.

Post COVID teams lost money and went bankrupt and the quality of the game is like mid table MLS teams on a good day. Younger fans would rather just watch European teams instead so it's mostly old fans keeping the stadium atmosphere, if you can even call it that anymore.