A former national team coach is the biggest name caught in China's massive crackdown on corruption in sports.
Li Tie, the former Chinese national team coach who once played for Everton Football Club in the English Premier League, has been jailed in China for 20 years on corruption charges as part of a crackdown on corruption there the sport
He was sentenced at a court in Hubei province on Friday, after being found guilty of a series of crimes related to the giving and receiving of bribes.
The court said the 47-year-old, by far the biggest name in the sport, was netted in the sweep. crackhas dealt in bribes worth 120 million yuan ($16.5m) between 2015 and 2021, a period including his two-year tenure as national coach.
Li entered a guilty plea in court back in March, but had earlier admitted to arranging nearly $421,000 in bribes to secure the job of a national coach and to schedule Chinese Super League matches. arranged in a documentary broadcast by broadcaster CCTV in January.
CCTV occasionally broadcasts confessions by suspected criminals before they appear in court, a practice that has been widely criticized by rights groups.
Poor performance
Chinese football has been plagued by match-fixing and corruption since at least the late 1990s, with local fans blaming corruption for the national team's continued poor performance.
President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign has also seen former Chinese Football Association (CFA) chief Chen Xuyuan jailed for life earlier this year for bribes worth more than 81 million yuan ($11m) to take
As part of the crackdown, several top football officials were sentenced this year to terms ranging from 30 months to 14 years.
In September, the CFA imposed life bans on 38 players and five club officials following a two-year investigation into gaming and gambling conditions.
The investigation found that 120 matches were fixed involving 41 football clubs.
Xi is a self-proclaimed soccer fan who wants China to host and win the World Cup one day, but the men's national team has long failed.
FIFA currently ranks China 90th in the world, one place above the small island of Curacao in the Caribbean.
