Li Tie: Chinese football legend and ex-Everton player jailed 20 years for corruption

More than a dozen Chinese football coaches and players have come under investigation. 

This week, three other former officials from the Chinese Football Association (CFA) were also handed jail sentences for bribery.

Former CFA secretary general Liu Yi was handed an 11-year sentence and fined 3.6 million yuan on Wednesday for taking bribes.

That same day, Tan Hai, former head of the CFA’s referee management department, was jailed for six and a half years and received a 200,000 yuan fine also for bribery. 

Qi Jun, the CFA’s ex-chief of strategic planning, was sentenced to seven years and slapped with a 600,000 yuan fine

Former CFA chief Chen Xuyuan was jailed for life in March for accepting bribes.

Li appeared on a documentary by state broadcaster CCTV about widespread corruption in the Chinese football industry and admitted to arranging 3 million yuan in bribes to secure his head coach position. 

As a player, he said he hated match fixing but did it because he realised it could improve his team’s chances for winning and advance his career. 

“There were certain things that at the time were common practices in football,” Li said.

“Once you achieve success in the wrong way, you become more and more desperate for more success. This then becomes a habit and later on, you even develop some reliance on it.”

“HOW GREEDY WERE YOU?”

Li’s sentencing has dominated interest across Chinese social media platforms.

The news hit number one on the Sina Weibo microblogging site, with users expressing shock and disappointment at Li’s fall from grace. 

Many also lamented the state of the sport in the country. 

“How greedy were you? (This is) second to life imprisonment,” commented one Weibo user, adding that Chinese football “was in such a state with such twisted values”.  

Another fan, sharing a clip from the CCTV documentary that Li was featured in, said the country’s football team was at its “most promising state” to qualify for the World Cup when Li had been coach. 

“Only 20 years? Li ruined the player lineup that (our) country had invested billions in,” the fan wrote on Weibo. 

“How many years do Chinese football fans have to wait before they will see such a good team (again)?”