Former China coach admits to having paid bribes for the position – 01/10/2024 – Sports

Former coach Li Tie, in provisional prison for corruption, admitted having paid almost 400 thousand euros (R$2.1 million) to secure the position of coach of the Chinese national team. The confession is yet another chapter in the Chinese football corruption scandal.

In a confession shown in a documentary broadcast on public television CCTV on Tuesday (9), the 46-year-old coach also admitted to having participated in match-fixing when he was a club coach.

“I deeply regret it. I should have been more pragmatic and followed the correct path”, he declared on camera with regret.

“There are certain things that, at that time, were common practice in the world of football,” he added.

In January 2020, when he was appointed to succeed Italian Marcello Lippi as coach of the Chinese national team, the former Everton (ING) player declared that he was fulfilling “one of the biggest dreams” of his life.

But, as he admitted in the documentary, to carry it out, he had to ask the club he was training at the time, Wuhan Zall, to intercede on his behalf with the Chinese Football Federation (CFA), promising to return the favor once appointed.

Li stated that he paid two million yuan (255 thousand euros, or R$1.3 million at current exchange rates) in bribes to the then president of the CFA, Chen Xuyuan, and another one million (130 thousand euros, or R$670 thousand) to the body’s secretary general.

Shortly after his appointment, Li called up four players from Wuhan Zall who, as the club president himself acknowledged in the same documentary, “did not have the level” to defend the team.

Li Tie was fired in December 2021 after failing to qualify his country for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Anti-corruption authorities began investigating him in late 2022, which led to the downfall of a dozen senior Chinese football officials, including former president Chen Xuyuan.

Indicted for corruption last September, Chen admitted in the documentary to having received significant amounts of money from football actors to intercede in favor of their interests.

“I want to apologize to all football fans in China,” he said on camera.

This investigation into Chinese football is part of a major anti-corruption campaign initiated by President Xi Jinping.

China aspires to have a competitive football team, but remains in 79th place in the FIFA rankings, the same level as a decade ago, and has only participated in one World Cup, in 2002.