A Study On Discipline Punishment Rules Of Chinese Football Association

A new era of football reform in China started with “The Overall Plan for the Reform and Development of Chinese football”(hereinafter referred to as “the plan”)issued by the General Office of the State Council in 2015.To strengthen the management of the football industry,strictly prevent and severely punish the violation of rules and regulations in football games,and improve the disciplinary system will not only meet the requirements of the plan,but also meet the urgent needs of creating a healthy atmosphere for football industry and punishing bad behaviors and conducts in football games.It has been 30 years since the professionalization of football in China,and there have been more than 20 kinds of rules and regulations related to football games ever made.Although the initial results of fair governance of football games have been achieved,the violations of rules and regulations such as field violence,fraud and doping still occur frequently.Therefore a systematic construction concerning implementation of disciplinary punishment in football industry has a long way to go.Among many systematic regulations,the “Disciplinary Code of Chinese Football Association”(hereinafter referred to as the “Disciplinary Code”)is the most authoritative one,which is issued by Chinese Football Association to punish the violation of rules and regulations in football games at all levels.Obviously,positive exploration of promoting the legal system of football governance in contemporary China can be seen,however,there are still defects in the system and its implementation.The industry identification standard of violation and anomie of Chinese football field are not clear and reasonable enough,so to establish a sound systemic governance of football games are still on the way.In view of the significance of the disciplinary code of the Chinese Football Association as an authoritative and standard norm,this paper aims to answer the research questions as follows: what is improper about the disciplinary code issued by Chinese Football Association and its implementation? What are the causes? And how to solve these problems effectively?Based on the idea of “fairness and justice” and “broken window effect” as the theoretical premise,this dissertation makes a text analysis of the “Disciplinary Code”,which was carried out from 2015 to 2019,as well as the punishment decisions made by the disciplinary committee according to the code,with the methods of literature review,expert interview,case analysis,logical analysis,and mathematical statistics and etc.This dissertation aims to put forward suggestions and countermeasures to improve the “Disciplinary Code” and enhance the effectiveness of its implementation by analyzing the identification of the conducts of violations,the statistics of the number of the punished and their results,the rationality of the“Disciplinary Code” and problems in its implementation.The conclusions are as follows:1.From 2015 to 2019,there were mainly 4 types of disciplinary punishment objects including football players,football clubs,club officials,and football fields.Players and club officials were the main punishment objects,accounting for nearly 80% of the total.Players and club officials can be taken as the main punishment objects in disciplinary punishment.2.Players' aggressive behaviors such as kicking and hitting,insulting behaviors such as abusing,and provocative behaviors such as fighting were the main behaviors of violating rules and regulations.Club officials' accusation and abuse of referees were their main practices of violation.The main reason for the clubs to be punished was that the clubs did not abide by the game process and the players fought in groups.As to the penalty in the field,the main reason was that the fans and spectators set off fireworks and threw sundries in the field to disturb public order.The above specific violations can be taken as the worst conducts in the disciplinary punishment.3.The “Disciplinary Code” is a systematic disciplinary punishment for the violation of rules and regulations,but there are some problems and drawbacks about it,such as unreasonable structure of the code,inequality between judges and players concerning obligations and punishment,and inconsistent standard of identifying conducts of violation and lack of feasible scope of punishment.Due to these problems,in the implementation of the code,the conducts of violation of rules and regulations were not punished completely based on the provisions.On the other hand,the discretion of the punishment subjects was too wide,which led to disputes on the results of punishment.And there were some problems in the implementation of code,such unstandardized and unstrict definition of punishment,different punishments for the same type of cases and delay in decision-making on punishment.There were some problems in the written decision of punishment as well.For example,the reason for punishment was not clarified,the terms or items for punishment were wrong,missing or not specific,and the document number was repeated,missing or unstandardized.4.The structure of disciplinary punishment system should be adjusted according to the legislative methods of relevant laws with punitive nature.In order to determine what kind of violation of rules and regulations it is,the types of violation of rules and regulations should be divided according to the punishment objects for their violation of rules and regulations.If necessary,“sub levels” of violation of rules and regulations for the same punishment object should be supplemented,so that the punishment standard of violation of rules and regulations with the same kind of nature can be relatively unified.The scope of punishment for violation of rules and regulations should be determined,and the standard of punishment should be adjusted to it.In order to further regulate the discretion and ensure the fairness of the punishment results,the starting point of the punishment should be determined within the scope of the punishment,and the benchmark punishment should be determined on the basis of the starting point of the punishment.Finally,the benchmark punishment should be adjusted according to the circumstances of the violation and the degree of social influence.In accordance with the requirements for written decision of administrative penalty,the written form of punishment should be arranged in the order of article,section,provision and item,so as to conform to the principle of correspondence between violation and punishment.5.A consultative and dialogue system of disciplinary punishment involving multiple governance institutions should be set up under the leadership of the Chinese Football Association,and all governance institutions should be given equal rights to vote and equal rights to express their views on improving the disciplinary punishment system.On the official website platform of Chinese Football Association,a social evaluation system of discipline punishment should be established through surveys on the public attitude towards the results of discipline punishment,to ensure that the selection of evaluation subjects are representative and professional.The channels for reporting violations of rules and regulations in amateur football matches should be open to social supervision in order to assist the Chinese Football Association in strengthening the management of amateur football matches.