In an article posted on asianfootball.com last May the website introduced the 2004/05 Chinese domestic football championship like this:

"The new Super League, which has Siemens as its title sponsor, has been streamlined and will feature 12 teams this year compared to 15 last season in an effort to improve the quality of games."

In the same article, representatives from the Chinese Football Federation declared:

"The super league will be China's brand new top-flight soccer league founded on the basis of the old professional first division league. We expect it to fully promote the health and consistent development of Chinese soccer."

Well, eventually things turned out pretty ugly. Plagued by allegations of illegal gambling, match fixing, teams abandoning the pitch in the middle of a game in protest against referees' decisions, and the usual, endemic inability of the Chinese Football Federation to handle this sport in a professional and open way, the China Super League last year looked anything but 'Super'.

In light of this, it is understandable that Siemens decided to give up the sponsorship of the 'Super League' for the 2005/06 season. The news was broken on the 28th of January with a statement explaining that the decision is 'due to market strategy reasons'.

This notwithstanding, Siemens will still keep sponsoring the Chinese National Football Team.

Ja, good luck!

The picture is a screen grab from tribuneindia.com.

LINKS:
Asian Football article
Sina article on Siemens withdrawal (in Chinese)