Lhasa (AFP)

Lhassa Chengtou, the first and only professional football club in Tibet, is to shut down after a series of controversies over the holding of its matches in one of the highest cities in the world, at 3.650 meters above sea level.

The club in the capital of Tibet, an autonomous region in southwest China, has only played two home games this season in the Chinese third division championship. And each time, the referee had to suspend the game for a quarter of an hour to allow players to breathe bottled oxygen, according to Xinhua (China News).

Last season, Lhassa Chengtou finished 26th out of 32 D3 clubs, playing most of its home matches ... in Deyang, in Sichuan province, 2,400 km from Lhassa.

"We wanted to be a window on the world for Tibetan football, we did our best to host matches in Tibet, but to no avail," the club regrets in a statement posted on Weibo, the Chinese Twitter, to the attention. of its 2,500 followers.

The death blow was delivered by the Chinese Football Federation (CFA) by deciding not to validate the results of the matches played at high altitude, for reasons related to the safety of the players.

Sources say six Shenzhen Pengcheng players took to the field on a stretcher during a game in Lhasa after experiencing altitude sickness, which the Tibetan police denied.

The Chinese Communist Party relied heavily on the club, created three years ago, to help Tibetans feel better integrated. But the geographic location has proven to be an insurmountable handicap. "All the land available in Tibet is located over 3,000 meters above sea level," said Xinhua.

- The South American precedent -

The problem of Tibetan football recalls the controversy born in 2007 of a decision of the Executive Committee of Fifa, before its 57th Congress: to ban international matches above 2,500 meters above sea level, in the name of the health of the players.

This measure particularly targeted certain countries in South America, notably Bolivia, whose national team often moved to La Paz (3,600 m above sea level), Colombia (Bogota, 2,600 m) and Ecuador (Quito, 2,800 m).

A boycott of Copa America 2007 was then envisaged, the Bolivian president Evo Morales stepping up to evoke a situation comparable to apartheid in South Africa. Fifa had reversed this decision and, two years later, Argentina's Lionel Messi had run out of air in Bolivia, severely beaten (6-1) in the qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup.

- Worrying finances -

Another reason for the dissolution, according to the Tibetan club, is the CFA's ban on giving clubs a trade name. Lhassa Chengtou was named after a public works company, "Lhasa Urban Construction Investment", which is owned by the state.

All staff, players and coaches were laid off last week. In three years, there have only been five home games, according to the Global Times. There remain in Lhasa 70 young players, aged 13 to 16, who continue to train in extreme conditions, at high altitude, and whose future is uncertain.

Football had arrived in Tibet at the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to the British army. Lhassa Chengtou is the 17th professional football club to lower the curtain this year, in a country where the development of the most universal sport is slowing sharply. Because of the impact of the coronavirus on clubs which, in some cases, were already in worrying financial situations.

© 2020 AFP