From music to online games, via reality TV and private lessons, China has been trying in recent months to regain control of its youth and impose virile values, as opposed to a moral decadence that would come from abroad .
It is up to football to pay the price at the end of the year.
The Chinese Ministry of Sports has just banned tattoos for national team players and urged those who have them to "remove" them.
"In special circumstances [...] tattoos should be covered" during training and competitions, the ministry said in a statement, which prohibits the recruitment of any tattooed athlete.
Ban "effeminate" men and "vulgar influencers"
The Chinese audiovisual regulator has thus called in recent months to establish “correct” beauty criteria and to ban “effeminate” men and “vulgar influencers”.
Also in the viewfinder, the "vulgar" content broadcast on the small screen and social networks, called to privilege rather "patriotic" values rather than those of hip-hop culture in particular.
Tattoos are generally frowned upon in China, which remains overwhelmingly a conservative society.
But they have some success in big cities especially with the younger generation.
The measure is variously appreciated by football fans.
"Should we choose a good player or a saint?"
“, Wondered a supporter on the social network Weibo.
This is not the first time that aesthetics are invited in Chinese football.
In recent years, the Federation has already ordered players to cover their tattoos during matches.
In Japan too, these inscriptions, associated with the mafias, are generally proscribed in the name of tradition.
#ChineseFootball good as everyone could see Wales swept China 0-6 in the # ChinaCup2018 game.
What agitates everyone is not the score but the fact that the government is having the tattoos of the players covered with bandages or sleeves pic.twitter.com/o5ejmSl4ZW
- Seb66 赛博 😷🇲🇫🇨🇳 (@seb_perpignan) March 24, 2018
Football legend David Beckham appeared blurry last year in a Chinese public television documentary.
A women's college football match was also canceled last year ... after a ban on players dyeing their hair.
