A former coach of China’s national men’s soccer team has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for accepting bribes.
Lee Tye, who plays for Everton in the English Premier League, pleaded guilty earlier this year to match-fixing, accepting bribes and paying bribes to secure a top coaching job.
The case shows how President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption crackdown has hit sports, banking and the military.
Earlier this week, three former Chinese Football Association (CFA) officials were also sentenced to prison for bribery. More than a dozen coaches and players have been investigated.
Li, who was the head coach of the national team from January 2020 to December 2021, pleaded guilty in March to accepting more than $16 million in bribes.
The court said this was from 2015, when he was an assistant coach at Hebei China Fortune Club, until 2021, when he stepped down as national coach.
In exchange for bribes, Lee would select specific individuals for the national team and help football clubs win competitions.
The 47-year-old was featured in an anti-corruption documentary aired by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV earlier this year, apologizing for his crimes.
“I am very sorry. I should have kept my head down and followed the right path,” he said. “There were certain things that were common in football at that time.”
Li made 92 appearances for China and played in the 2002 World Cup – the country’s only finals appearance to date.
His former boss, Former CFA President Chen Xuyuanwas sentenced to life in prison earlier this year for accepting $11 million in bribes.
Xi has in the past expressed his ambitions to transform China into a major football power.
In 2011, he spoke of his “three wishes” for Chinese football: to qualify for the World Cup again, host the tournament and one day win the trophy.
But recent arrests and convictions of football bigwigs – some of whom were tasked with leading the football revolution – have dealt another blow to the country’s football ambitions.
The latest crackdown on corruption echoes the first crackdown on Chinese football in 2010, when several officials, national team players and referees were jailed for corruption.
It was also led by Xi, then Vice President of China.
Rowan Simons, author of Bamboo Goalposts, a book on his long-term efforts to develop grassroots football in China, told BBC China earlier this year: “In many ways, [the current campaign] Looks exactly like it did 10 years ago with different characters.
“How is it different? There’s a lot more money involved.”
Additional reporting by Zizhi Shao in Hong Kong