Seven China players sent home amid brawl media storm

Seven China U-21 internationals have been sent home early from the Chelsea training centre as the mass brawl with Queens Park Rangers players dominated Chinese media yesterday.

Defender Zheng Tao ended up in hospital with a fractured jaw after Wednesday's melee, which caused the friendly between China's Olympic team for next year's Beijing Games and the English second division club to be abandoned.

Despite apologies from the visiting party, the majority view in the Chinese media was that both parties were to blame for the fight.

"Equal brutality," read the banner headline in the People's Daily, Beijing News had "Olympic team purging, Gao expelled", while the Beijing Times put the blame on the CFA with their "The father should be blamed for the son's fault".

Beijing Youth Daily's "Fight in Europe" is a play on words in Chinese.

Shanghai Shenhua striker Gao Lin, whose attack on an opponent at the west London club's training ground sparked off the trouble, will be joined on the plane by six other players from Shenhua, Dalian Shide and Shandong Luneng.

The Chinese FA (CFA) said the clubs had already requested the release of these players to help preparations for the new Chinese season and the Asian Champions League.

In China, the CFA have remained silent on the matter and their official website carried only a report on the senior team's 2-1 victory over Kazakhstan, which also took place on Wednesday.

Some fans used the incident to pile more abuse on the Chinese national team, who are often pilloried by fans.

"What makes me really angry is they are not even able to win a fight never mind the game. Gao Lin should have been smarter, why didn't he secretly niggle his opponent or fall to the ground and roll around like Cristiano Ronaldo?" Li Chengpeng posted on Sina.com.