China jails ex-football head coach Li Tie for bribery
The former coach of the Chinese national men’s football team has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for bribery, state media reported.
Li Tie, who also played for Everton in the English Premier League, confessed earlier this year to fixing matches, accepting bribes, and offering bribes to get the top coaching job.
The case shows how President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption crackdown has cut through sport, banking and the military.
Earlier this week, three former officials from the Chinese Football Association (CFA) were also handed jail sentences for bribery. More than a dozen coaches and players have been investigated.
Li, who was the national team’s head coach from January 2020 to December 2021, pleaded guilty in March to taking over $10 million in bribes.
The 47-year-old was featured in an anti-corruption documentary aired by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV early this year, wherein he apologised for his offences.
“I’m very sorry. I should have kept my head to the ground and followed the right path,” he said. “There were certain things that at the time were common practices in football”.
Li had made 92 appearances for China and played at the 2002 World Cup.
His former boss, the former CFA president Chen Xuyuan, was sentenced to life in prison earlier this year for accepting bribes worth $11 million.
Xi had in the past voiced his ambition to turn China into a major football power.
In 2011, he spoke of his “three wishes” for Chinese football: to qualify for the World Cup again, to host the tournament and to one day win the trophy.
But the recent detentions and convictions of major football figures – some of whom were officials tasked to lead the football revolution – have dealt another setback to the country’s football ambitions.
