A new figure in Chinese football has been swept away by the anti-corruption fight led by President Xi Jingping. Li Tie, former coach of the men's national team, was sentenced on Friday December 13 to twenty years in prison for having paid or received bribes for years.
Coach of the Chinese football team from January 2020 to December 2021, Li Tie, 47, pleaded guilty in early 2024. According to the public channel CCTV, he had notably pocketed nearly 51 million yuan (6.7 million euros). 'euros) of bribes to players to select them for the national team or help them sign contracts with clubs.
Since coming to power in 2012, Xi Jinping has led a vast anti-corruption campaign in many areas. Authorities began cracking down on the sports world in late 2022, and this week they announced a series of heavy sentences against former football officials.
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Li is one of the most famous Chinese footballers. A midfielder for Everton and Sheffield United in the English Premier League, he was capped nearly a hundred times for the national team before pursuing a coaching career in Chinese clubs. In January, he took part in a documentary on widespread corruption in Chinese football broadcast by CCTV.
Li Tie admitted on camera to having helped fix several matches in order to allow the Chinese second division teams he managed to reach the elite. The man also admitted to having bought his position as national coach. “I’m really sorry. I should have kept a cool head and followed the right pathLi had declared. At the time, certain things were standard practice in football. »
CCTV sometimes broadcast confessions from suspects before their appearance in court, a practice decried by human rights defenders.
Several sports officials convicted of corruption
Several other former Chinese sports officials were heavily sentenced this week. And according to state media, the judgment in the trial of a former number two in the national sports administration is also expected on Friday.
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On Wednesday, the former general secretary of the Chinese Football Federation, Liu Yi, was sentenced to eleven years in prison for corruption. The same day, the former head of the Federation's referee management office, Tan Hai, received a six and a half year prison sentence for the same offense. The day before, a seven-year prison sentence was handed down to Qi Jun, former head of strategic planning for the Federation. As for the former president of the Federation, Chen Xuyuan, he has been serving a life prison sentence since March, also for accepting bribes.
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Xi Jinping's supporters applaud the severity with which corruption is fought in China, but his critics say this crackdown also serves to purge his political rivals.
Self-proclaimed football fan, Xi Jinping wishes that China could one day host and win the World Cup. But the men's national team, often mocked by the Chinese, remains stuck in the 90e place in the FIFA rankings, more or less at the same level as ten years ago, just ahead of the small island of Curaçao, in the Caribbean.
