Chinese government bans national team players from displaying tattoos

In recent years, and particularly in recent months, the Chinese government has regulated and imposed real aesthetic and behavioural standards on its citizens, restricting their freedom of expression, and this is why footballers such as Zhang Linpeng and Zhang Xizhe - the main 'targets' because of their media exposure - will have to 'remove' their tattoos in order to continue playing for their country's national team.

The note from the GAS (General Administration of Sports) was cruelly clear: players in the first team and the under-20 team of the Chinese national team will have to remove their tattoos to continue to play for them. The reason? According to the government, and according to China's main sporting body, football players must have the task of being a "good example" for Chinese society, respecting pre-established aesthetic standards.

This news is a demonstration of how China is providing - even in the sporting world - a real "militarising" repression of customs that in other countries are closely rooted in pop culture. It is the sad culmination of a process that began years ago, when in 2018 the government placed a ban on the display of tattoos within cinema films, as the same could have communicated a reference to subcultures closely linked to the world of hip-hop (considered as immoral) and the crews of the world of crime. 

It is interesting to try to understand how such a clear-cut measure could be received in Europe. The phenomenon of players migrating from European leagues to China to serve in the Super League is very recent: names such as Marek Hamsik, Anderson Talisca, Graziano Pellè, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Fabio Cannavaro are just some of the most significant of this phenomenon, which began in 2016 and is already inexorably dying nowadays.

Because while players in the West and South America often manage to be noticed for their healthy extravagance, firmly rooted in their expressive personalities, this means that they will never want to serve in a country where, in 2020, the women's football team of Fuzhou University lost a game by default because a female player took the field with an unruly hair colour, and who knows what they will encounter in the future, Fuzhou University's women's football team lost a game by forfeit because a female player took the field with an inappropriate hair colour, and who knows what Jackson Martinez, the former Porto and Guanghzou star, who two years ago decided to release a religious hip-hop single on Spotify, would be up against these days. 

While overseas leagues such as Major League Soccer are booming in terms of visibility, fame, infrastructure, and level of players, the Chinese Super League seems to have begun a slow regression and a sad "closure" towards Europe, dictated by the rigours of the ruling Communist Party. It is hard to imagine that a Premier League or Serie A player would want to play in such a league, and it is - unfortunately - much easier to see this situation as a great opportunity for sporting growth missed by China.