China's women embrace the beautiful game

Bucking dire predictions of domestic disharmony in China during soccer's World Cup finals, an online survey has revealed that more than 80 percent of Chinese women plan to watch at least some of the matches.

Reports in the Chinese media in the run-up to the tournament forecast a war between the sexes as men stayed up into the small hours to watch the action from Germany.

"Surprisingly there is a considerable share of the female audience who are open to watching the game," said Rene Bos of marketing information provider AC Nielsen, who conducted the survey.

"In fact, according to findings in our online study, only 15 percent of females have indicated no interest in the game."

Despite China's failure to qualify for the finals, the survey revealed that 30 percent of the women were "very much interested" in watching matches. Two-thirds of male respondents expressed the same level of interest with 65 percent intending to watch "as much as possible" of the finals.

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Although Brazil are the overwhelming favourite team of more than a third of those surveyed, England, led by photogenic skipper David Beckham, enjoy the backing of 18 percent of Chinese women.

In spite of the apparent consensus, the late night broadcast of World Cup matches has already contributed to one tragedy in the southwestern province of Sichuan.

The Tainfu Morning Post reported that a woman committed suicide by leaping from the 17th floor of an apartment building in Chengdu after a row with her boyfriend, who wanted to watch a World Cup match in the early hours of Sunday morning.