The ex coach of its national soccer team ChinaLi Tai, was sentenced today (13/12) to 20 years in prison for giving or receiving money to fix match results, select footballers and retain his position as a federal selector over a number of years.
The downfall of Tai, who had been one of China’s best-known players abroad, reveals the extent of corruption in China’s football world, against which the authorities are waging a fierce crackdown.
Public broadcaster CCTV broadcast a photo of the former Premier League player standing in the dock of a court in Hubei province, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, flanked by two police officers.
The court announced that it had sentenced Lee to “20 years in prison.”
Since taking office in 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping has led a massive anti-corruption campaign in many areas. Authorities began investigating the world of sports at the end of 2022 and have already this week announced a number of other heavy penalties against former officials in the world of football.
A national coach from January 2020 to December 2021, 47-year-old Lee Tye had an important career on English pitches with Everton and Sheffield in the English league. As a player, he was capped almost a hundred times for the national team, before taking up coaching at Chinese clubs.
However, according to CCTV, he collected almost 51 million yuan (6.7 million euros) from players to select them for the national team or help them sign contracts with clubs, while giving large sums of money to football club owners for to support his candidacy for the position of national coach. And when he coached teams in the league, he hid millions of yuan in secret commissions for player transfers or match-fixing.
In January, he took part in a documentary about widespread corruption in Chinese football on “CCTV”, which included recording confessions from suspects before they appeared in court, a practice denounced by human rights defenders.
Tai admitted on camera that he helped “fix” several matches to allow China’s second-tier teams to reach the “living rooms” of Chinese football, while admitting that he “bought” his position as coach.
“I’m really sorry. I should have kept calm and followed the right path,” Tye said, adding: “At that time, some things were common practice in football.”