20 years in prison for Li Tie, former Everton player

The former coach of the Chinese football team and former Everton player, Li Tiewas sentenced on Friday to twenty years in prison for paying or accepting bribes for years to fix matches, select players and even buy his own station. The fall of one of the most prominent Chinese players abroad shows the extent of the corruption in the world of football in Chinaagainst which the authorities are launching a fierce campaign of repression.

Public television CCTV broadcast an image of the former Premier League player standing in the dock at a court in Hubei province (centre), wearing a black hooded jersey and flanked by two police officers. The court announced that it had sentenced Li to a “20-year prison sentence.”

Since coming to power in 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping has led a sweeping anti-corruption campaign in many areas. The authorities began an attack on the world of sport at the end of 2022 and announced this week a series of other harsh sentences against former officials in the world of football. Li Tie, 47, coach of China from January 2020 to December 2021, is also a midfielder for Everton and Sheffield in the Premier League. As a player, he was capped almost a hundred times by the national team, before pursuing a coaching career with Chinese clubs.

But according to CCTV, he pocketed nearly €6.7 million in bribes from players to select them for the national team or help them sign contracts with clubs. According to CCTV, Li also paid money to football club bosses to support his bid for the position of national coach, and when he coached league teams, he kept millions of yuan as commissions for move players or adjust matches.

In January, he participated in a documentary about widespread corruption in Chinese football on public channel CCTV, which sometimes broadcasts confessions from suspects before their court appearances, a practice denounced by defenders of human rights. Li Tie admitted on camera that he helped arrange some matches so that the Chinese second division teams could reach the elite. He also admitted to buying his coaching position. “I’m very sorry. I should have kept a cool head and followed the right path. Back then, there were things that were common in football.”