Boost for Chinese football league

The Chinese football league's popularity is growing

The Chinese Super League (CSL) has reported the best attendances in its six-year history, and also said that it enjoyed healthy sponsorship revenues.

Sponsorship in the just-ended 2009 season was worth 150m yuan ($21.97m; £13.3m) and total gate numbers for all matches was 160 million fans.

In recent years Chinese football has been plagued by match-fixing claims, and by political interference.

Football is also facing competition from other sports such as basketball.

'Most popular'

Recently government officials have called for the reform of football, and there have been major police investigations into match-fixing allegations.

The 2009 season - sponsored by Italian tyre maker Pirelli - was completed two weeks ago with Beijing Guoan being crowned champions.

"The CSL is still the most popular [Chinese sports] league in terms of spectators and television viewers," Lu Feng, manager of the CSL's commercial arm, told the Shenzhen Economics Daily.

"The average number of spectators at each game this season was 16,300. It's the biggest number in the league's history.

"It's a remarkable number and our sponsors are very satisfied."

Football in China, where there are millions of enthusiastic fans, has been in the doldrums for some time at both club and national level.

After a recent match involving Tianjin club - when players attacked the referee - the Chinese Football Association said players had damaged the image of the game.