THE retirement of China’s deputy sports minister Cui Dalin was not related to the national crackdown on soccer gambling and match-fixing, the Beijing News reported Thursday, quoting Wei Di, chief of the Chinese Football Association (CFA).

Cui, 61, was in charge of competitive sports for the four years running up to what he described as “an historic breakthrough” at the 2008 Olympics, where Chinese athletes won 51 golds and 100 medals in all. In many ways he was nicknamed “Mr. State System.”

Cui’s retirement was confirmed by Xinhua on Wednesday.

As a vice head of China’s General Administration of Sport, Cui has been in charge of soccer for years and earlier reports said he could end his career as CFA chairman. But his sudden retirement might put this in doubt, the Beijing News said.

Cui started his 40-year career in sports administration after being sent to the countryside in the 1960s along with millions of other young Chinese during the “Cultural Revolution.”

 By the time he was 30, he was deputy head of the sports institute in his native Liaoning, traditionally one of China’s strongest sporting provinces.

He rose to national prominence when Liaoning won 10 successive national soccer titles in the days before professional leagues.

Cui also promoted the career of controversial Liaoning coach Ma Junren, whose “family army” of middle and long-distance runners sparked suspicion of doping when they came from nowhere to shatter a series of world records.

After the 2008 Olympic triumph, Cui turned his attention to improving China’s prowess in soccer, basketball, athletics and swimming.

It was soccer, however, that occupied most of his time over the past year after the corruption scandal led to the arrest of a number of top soccer officials, including Nan Yong, the former head of the CFA.

Ma said his athletes used only traditional Chinese tonics, but his runners were dropped from the China team for the 2000 Olympics after blood tests showed abnormal results.

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