The live broadcast of a soccer match between China and Japan was cancelled on the weekend, prompting accusations that "deeper" motivations were behind the move.

CCTV-5, which owns 85 percent of the country's television sports market, had bought the rights to the East Asian Championship game and scheduled it for broadcast from Tokyo on Saturday evening.

But when fans tuned in for the clash with China's fiercest rivals, they were presented with a local version of the long-running European game show Jeux Sans Frontier, "Inter-Cities".