BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s crackdown on corruption in soccer claimed a notable figure on Friday when former Everton midfielder and national team coach Li Tie was sentenced to 20 years in prison for giving and receiving bribes.
Li, one of his country’s best known players from his time as a midfielder in the English Premier League and the national team at the 2002 World Cup, was coach of China from late 2019 until he resigned two years later.
The Communist Party investigation into Li’s conduct began in November 2022, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Friday, and the 47-year-old appeared in a court in Hubei province in March this year when he submitted a guilty plea.
The Xianning court alleged that from 2015, when he was an assistant coach at the Hebei China Fortune club, until 2021, when he quit as China coach, Li gave and received bribes totalling 120 million yuan ($16.5 million).
In exchange for bribes, the court said, Li would select certain individuals for the national team as well as help clubs win competitions and sign players.
Also on Friday, a court in the city of Wuhan sentenced Du Zhaocai, former vice chairman of the Chinese Football Association and former deputy head of the General Administration of Sport, to 14 years in jail and 4 million yuan ($550,000) in fines for taking bribes adding up to 43.4 million yuan, state media reported.
Chinese football has grappled with match-fixing and graft at least since the late 1990s with local fans blaming corruption for the continuing poor performance of the national team.
When President Xi Jinping came to power, he expressed a hope that China would qualify for the World Cup for the second time after 2002, then host the tournament, and ultimately one day win it.
Xi also unleashed a sweeping anti-corruption campaign which earlier this year resulted in former Chinese Football Association (CFA) Chen Xuyuan being sentenced to life in prison for taking bribes worth over 81 million yuan.
Several other top soccer officials were this year sentenced to terms ranging from 30 months to 14 years for corruption.
In September, the CFA banned for life 38 players and five club officials after a two-year investigation into match-fixing and gambling. The investigation found that 120 matches had been fixed, with 41 football clubs involved. ($1 = 7.2754 yuan)
(Reporting by Joe Cash and Qiaoyi Li in Beijing; Writing by Nick Mulvenney in Sydney; Editing by Tom Hogue and Kevin Liffey)
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