LONDON • Chinese state television is taking English Premier League football matches off the air, bringing the lucrative world of professional football into the increasingly fraught relations between Beijing and the United Kingdom.
CCTV, which has the rights to broadcast EPL games in China, will not show the remainder of the competition, said a person familiar with the decision.
The match between Liverpool and Chelsea was not aired as planned on Wednesday, the person said, asking not to be identified while discussing internal matters.
There is one final round of matches remaining this season, slated to be played on Sunday but CCTV's schedule no longer includes those games.
The move comes amid a deterioration of ties between the two countries in recent weeks, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government banning telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies and opposing the new security law imposed in Hong Kong.
Britain and the United States - which has also been taking a more confrontational stance with China - have discussed creating a coalition of countries to counter Beijing.
This would not be the first time competitive sport has been brought into geopolitics. Last year, CCTV dropped coverage of National Basketball Association (NBA) games after Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey made comments supporting pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. CCTV still does not air NBA games in China.
The move did not appear to extend to streaming platforms, with the Liverpool-Chelsea match aired on Chinese video app PPTV.
CCTV's action "is symbolic of what else could come following decisions around Hong Kong and Huawei", said Mark Tanner, founder of Shanghai-based research and marketing firm China Skinny.
And in an intensifying of the NBA's spat with China, the league said it has severed ties with a training centre in the restive western Xinjiang region.
In a letter published online by Senator Marsha Blackburn, the NBA also said it had lost "hundreds of millions of dollars" in revenue amid the bitter row.
"The NBA has had no involvement with the Xinjiang basketball academy for more than a year, and the relationship has been terminated," deputy commissioner Mark Tatum wrote.
While football is not as developed in China as it is in many European or South American nations, it is seen as a huge potential growth market, with President Xi Jinping a notable fan of the game.
The move by CCTV, the country's main state-backed broadcaster, could affect a 2015 plan from the leader to transform China into a football superpower.
That proposal had prompted companies such as Chinese entertainment giant Dalian Wanda Group to pour millions of dollars into foreign clubs - a trend that has abated following a crackdown by Beijing on capital outflows.
BLOOMBERG, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
