China's football dream more elusive than ever after latest flops

SHANGHAI, Sept 11 (AFP): China is throwing money at President Xi Jinping's ambitions to boast a top-class national football team and one day host a World Cup.

But while the latter can be achieved by splashing the cash, the former appears further away than ever after a desperate four days.

China's national team have long been an embarrassment to the country and on Friday, Marcello Lippi's side lost 1-0 to Qatar in Doha, triggering another bout of soul-searching and finger-pointing by Chinese media and fans.

Titan Sports, citing "informed sources", said that an apoplectic "high-ranking official" got on the phone to a team supervisor at the Khalifa Stadium before half-time to demand what was going on.

Lippi, said to be the best-paid international coach in the world on reported wages of between $23 million and $27 million a year, admitted he was shocked by the team's performance in Qatar.

That was followed on Monday by a moribund 0-0 draw with Bahrain, who are ranked 113th in the FIFA rankings to China's 75th, prompting Lippi to say that he was "mentally prepared for criticism".

Some incandescent fans on Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter, called for the national team to be disbanded.

The 70-year-old Lippi, who is expected to step down after the Asian Cup in the UAE in January, said he had been "surprised and worried about the condition of our players" before the Qatar game.

"If the Asian Cup opened next week, I'd be worried, but we still have time to become better," added Lippi, who led his native Italy to win the World Cup in 2006.