{"id":715869,"date":"2026-06-20T17:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T17:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/715869\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T17:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T17:18:08","slug":"shut-out-of-the-world-cup-again-china-roots-for-a-referee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/715869\/","title":{"rendered":"Shut out of the World Cup again, China roots for a referee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-apitype=\"text\" data-contentid=\"WSVEHV3H3NAOPPBEY3VWNZNUVI\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-heFNVF wpds-c-heFNVF-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">China\u2019s national team failed to make the World Cup this year, again. But the country\u2019s soccer fans have found someone else to cheer for on the field: a referee.<\/p>\n<p data-apitype=\"text\" data-contentid=\"HG5B24GCW5FRFO4PC53DA3F4YQ\" data-el=\"text\" class=\"wpds-c-heFNVF wpds-c-heFNVF-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\">With no players on the pitch, Ma Ning, 46, is the most prominent Chinese participant in this year\u2019s tournament \u2014 and he\u2019s parlayed his officiating experience, strict on-field demeanor and social media savvy into unlikely stardom back home, where he\u2019s landed media interviews and major sponsorships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China\u2019s national team failed to make the World Cup this year, again. But the country\u2019s soccer fans have&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-715869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}