Elevating Standards: Examining Ethics and Legal Compliance in Chinese Professional Football

Brief - This paper focuses on the current ethical behavior of Chinese professional football players, explaining the specific legal requirements, analyzing cases and academic views, and drawing theoretical support and implementation guidance for the more realistic construction of Chinese football. Introduction As Chinese football continues to professionalize, the ethical behavior of professional football players who are public figures has gradually become prominent. Its influence is not only reflected in the public image and career development of individual players but also has a direct impact on the overall image and long-term development of Chinese football. Therefore, how to regulate the ethical behavior of professional football players and enhancing the construction and implementation of legal regulations has become a key and urgent issue in the current development of Chinese football.

1. Legal Requirements

1.1 Detailed Interpretation of the ‘China Football Association Disciplinary Code’

The ‘China Football Association Disciplinary Code’ is the main legal regulation that reflects the standards for evaluating the behavior of professional football players. It contains the standard for judging the violation points for disciplinary offenses, the specific role-playing principles and standards for referees in making decisions, the comprehensive coverage of new types of disciplinary behaviors, such as inciting hostility and violence through the public media, and gradually adapting to the increasingly complex match scene. Through detailed interpretation of the specific contents of the above stipulations, we can make it clear what the s football players should bear in mind as a remark on their match behavior norms and legal obligations.

1.2 Application of the ‘Labour Contract Law of the People’s Republic of China’ in Football

The ‘Labour Contract Law of the People’s Republic of China’ is the main law to protect the rights of Chinese workers with its basic socialist principles stipulated. The work contracts that the professional football players of different clubs sign with the clubs concern the rights and interests of both sides, and the clubs should pay wages to the players in full and on time, provide a good workplace, and provide opportunities for career development. Meanwhile, the players should adhere to the contract requirements and make themselves perform in a professional spirit under the law. By referring to the corresponding regulations and provisions to interpret these two aspects, it is more specific to give a clear requirement for the rights and obligations of professional football players contractually.

1.3 Supplementing and Perfecting Other Relevant Laws and Regulations

Besides the above two main regulations, other basic laws such as the ‘Sports Law of the People’s Republic of China’ and the ‘Public Security Administration Punishment Law’ also provide strong support for regulating the behavior of professional football players. These two clear laws also had a considerable significant impact, which sets an example of unified exercise and preparation for other non-professional amateur football players, tables the clear requirements for the behavior of professional football players from the perspective of relevant laws and regulations, collectively forming an entire legal opinion system for the construction of professional football players’ behavior standards.

2. Analysis of Notable Violation Cases

2.1 In-depth Analysis of Lü Wenjun’s Punch Incident

Lü Wenjun’s punching incident, from beginning to end, was not only a simple violent case but also presented and responded to the issue of improper referee decision-making and the loopholes of player management, which should be mentioned more than other incidents. The details of the incident reflected the unbearable harm to the order of matches and the personal safety of players; when the so-called football dark horse player gives a brutal response to the player who fouled him, it also shows that his behavior is serious and the negative impact of the ugly behavior in a public match on image and reputation is particularly worth mentioning. This violent case without hesitation has been deeply held by society for a long time and has once again strongly sparked social attention and discussion. It can be seen that the incident has attracted extensive attention from the whole society, so it is necessary to have an in-depth analysis of the problematic situation, focusing on the sinful of this violent act and the corresponding punishment. In detail, the so-called ‘football black horse’ has no ethical bottom line and no regard for friends and the public, with the vicious response to the player fouled on the field, which grossly violates the professional ethics and dignity of the professional football player. In legal terms, it is obvious that this act of assault is a crime without hesitation and in urgent need of punishment. The referee was not judged wrong because it was difficult for him to penalize the professional anonymity on time in severe situations without the referee’s assistance. But this problem is more serious than we imagined, which is a complete negligence of the safety of players and reflects a serious problem with refereeing in the Chinese football system. Thus, the refereeing and the system problem are two obvious problems that we should focus on discussing and reflecting upon.

2.2 Legal and Social Impact of Zhang Lu’s Drinking Driving Incident

The interest confusion of Zhang Lu in drinking and driving not only led to severe punishment such as dismissal from the club and severe career setbacks but also brought him endless negative social impact. By analyzing the specific legal nature of this incident, the basis for punishment, the public hatred, and the public response to this incident, we can see that drinking and driving myself, by endangering myself and others, is a severe harm to public safety and even the most precious life of society. The publicity in all media comes from the psychological conscience response and regret of Zhang Lu himself and his explanation and apology from him. The public hatred of this incident was derived from the serious consequences of drunk driving on other people's lives, but also from the previous immoral and hypocritical behavior, which is more significant in moral influence. The analysis in this part using the data demonstrations not only shows the harm of drunk driving on the driving itself, but it is more significant in reflecting the social-emotional impact of his serious mistake.

2.3 Reflections on Refereeing and System from Zhang Lie’s Back-of-the-Head Hitting Incident

The back-of-the-head hitting of Zhang Lie exposed that the problem of player safety has not been thoroughly resolved in the final judgment of serious violations of referees, which deserves deep consideration and reflection. In detail, different from the case of Lü Wenjun’s hitting, discussed prior, Zhang Lie’s back-of-the-head hitting did not cause serious injuries to the attacked player and caused more damage to his equal reputation, which should be analyzed from the safety requirements for players. Because this injury and hit were blown out of proportion, causing public outrage, the whole society also reflects on the weakness and defect in the refereeing of the Chinese football system.

3. Academic Views and Discussions

3.1 Urgency and Implementation Paths of Sports Ethics Education

As a professional, the regulation of the moral behavior of professional football players must be an important path to require them to establish better moral quality and self-discipline. Sports ethics education is an important means to drive the players of professional football to have better moral cultivation. We focus on the urgency and implementation paths of sports ethics education and construct the main points of sports ethics education, including improving the quality of sports ethics education in the system and operation of school sports education, and providing moral training courses for professional football players as needed. Many players have allowed their sense of discipline and morality to be eroded and lost because they have not made the right choices in their development of morals and sports quality. If we do not accelerate the process of sports ethics education, we will separate the players from the direction of their professional sport and gradually form a negative cycle in their behavior. It will become more difficult for the younger generations to be taught and trained in sports ethics and self-discipline. This also influences many individuals, and they do not have a good reputation.

3.2 Perfection of Legal Regulations and Strengthening of Enforcement Mechanisms

It is worth noting that the current legal regulations for Chinese football are relatively complete in the field of law, especially the ‘China Football Association Disciplinary Code’, which is an important regulation with regulatory influence. However, some essential issues still need to be considered to further improve the norms of football behavior. It requires us to strengthen and improve the regulation of referee training and management, implement a more fair and accurate penalty decision and enforcement mechanism, improve the punishment and cash penalty ratio (as well as create a clear deterrent effect), and build a clearer and more perfect appeal and arbitration system.

3.3 Role and Strategies of Social Supervision and Public Opinion Guidance

Social supervision and public opinion influence an important soft power that plays an irreplaceable role in the regulation of the ethical behavior of professional football players in the sporting nation. After paying attention to the problem without further consumer response, this essay briefly mentions the role and strategies of social supervision and public opinion influence. Specifically, we should strengthen media supervision and report on matches and player activities, guide the public to have more reasonable recognition of football and the spirit of values, build a reporting and blame system, urge the media coverage of disciplinary events, and strongly encourage the public to prevent and report violations.

In conclusion, It is a difficult and serious problem for Chinese professional football players to be deported for ethical behavior. We can improve their ethical behavior by building a legal corpus, the means of enforcement, and innovative ways to enhance sports ethics in education and social supervision. We can achieve the improvement of ethical behavior of professional football players and the development of Chinese football, and we look forward to the majority of Chinese professional football players with good sportsmanship and influential social image to flower in the future development process of Chinese football.

References

1. Central Broadcasting Network Beijing, March 18 News.
2. "Labor Contract Law of the People's Republic of China," Article 85.
3. Huang Qiang, "Talk about Sports."
4. People's Daily Online.
5. "The Meaning of Sports Ethics for Football Players."
6. "Strengthening the Spirit, Conduct, and Willpower of Football Teams."