Former Premier League Star Li Tie Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Corruption in China

In a landmark case, a court in central Hubei province announced on Friday that Li had been sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment for various charges related to giving and receiving bribes.

The 47-year-old is one of China's biggest football names, serving as national team coach from January 2020 to December 2021, after racking up nearly 100 international caps and playing as a midfielder for English Premier League side Everton.

But state broadcaster CCTV said he used his status as China coach to extract nearly 51 million yuan ($7 million) in bribes in return for selecting players for the national team or helping them sign for clubs.

Li also "asked others to help him" become the national coach in 2019 and handed the unnamed people one million yuan the following year, according to CCTV.

During his tenure at now-defunct Chinese Super League (CSL) side Wuhan Zall, Li also colluded with club chiefs to hand out bribes in an effort to secure the national team job, the broadcaster said.

It also listed other accusations that Li and his previous clubs had paid the equivalent of millions of dollars in bribes to seal player transfers and fix match results stretching back to 2015.

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A photograph of Li published by CCTV showed the disgraced sportsman in the court dock, wearing a black hooded sweater and flanked by two police officers.

Televised confession

China's legal system is tightly controlled by the ruling Communist Party and courts have a near-100 percent conviction rate in criminal cases.

Li's conviction seemed certain after he pleaded guilty earlier this year to accepting over $10 million in bribes.

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He also featured in a documentary aired by CCTV in January about widespread corruption in Chinese football.

CCTV occasionally airs confessions by criminal suspects before they have appeared in court, a practice widely condemned by rights groups.

In the programe, Li said he had arranged nearly $421,000 in bribes to secure the head coach position and helped fix CSL matches.

"I'm very sorry. I should have kept my head to the ground and followed the right path," said Li during the show.

"There were certain things that at the time were common practices in football."

String of convictions

Chinese authorities have announced a spate of corruption convictions this week, and state media said the sentencing of the former vice-chief of the national sport administration was also expected on Friday.

On Wednesday, Liu Yi, who was secretary general of the Chinese Football Association (CFA), was handed an 11-year sentence and fined 3.6 million yuan ($495,000) for taking bribes.

The same day, the former head of the CFA's referees management office Tan Hai was given six and a half years and a 200,000-yuan fine for the same crime.

And on Tuesday, Qi Jun, the CFA's ex-chief of strategic planning, was sentenced to seven years and slapped with a 600,000-yuan penalty.

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

Proponents of Xi's corruption crackdown say the policy promotes clean governance, but others say it also serves as a means for him to purge political rivals.

Xi is a self-proclaimed football fan who wants China to host and win the World Cup one day, but the men's national team has long failed to impress.

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FIFA currently ranks China 90th in the world, one place above the tiny Caribbean island of Curacao.

(This story has not been edited by staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)