\u00a0<\/p>\n
The former coach of the Chinese national men\u2019s football team has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for bribery, state media reported.<\/strong><\/p>\n Li Tie, who also played for Everton in the English Premier League, confessed earlier this year to fixing matches, accepting bribes, and offering bribes to get the top coaching job.<\/p>\n The case shows how President Xi Jinping\u2019s anti-corruption crackdown has cut through sport, banking and the military.<\/p>\n Earlier this week, three former officials from the Chinese Football Association (CFA) were also handed jail sentences for bribery. More than a dozen coaches and players have been investigated.<\/p>\n Li, who was the national team\u2019s head coach from January 2020 to December 2021, pleaded guilty in March to taking over $16 million in bribes.<\/p>\n The court said that this happened from 2015, when he was an assistant coach at the Hebei China Fortune Club, until 2021, when he quit as the national coach.<\/p>\n In exchange for the bribes, Li would select certain individuals for the national team and help football clubs win competitions.<\/p>\n The 47-year-old was featured in an anti-corruption documentary aired by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV early this year, wherein he apologised for his offences.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very sorry. I should have kept my head to the ground and followed the right path,\u201d he said. \u201cThere were certain things that at the time were common practices in football.\u201d<\/p>\n Li had made 92 appearances for China and played at the 2002 World Cup \u2013 the country\u2019s only appearance in the finals so far.<\/p>\n His former boss, the former CFA president Chen Xuyuan, was sentenced to life in prison earlier this year for accepting bribes worth $11 million.<\/p>\n Xi had in the past voiced his ambition to turn China into a major football power.<\/p>\n In 2011, he spoke of his \u201cthree wishes\u201d for Chinese football: to qualify for the World Cup again, to host the tournament and to one day win the trophy.<\/p>\n But the recent detentions and convictions of major football figures \u2013 some of whom were officials tasked to lead the football revolution \u2013 have dealt another setback to the country\u2019s football ambitions.<\/p>\n This latest anti-graft campaign echoes an earlier crackdown in Chinese football in 2010, when several officials, national team players and referees were jailed for corruption.<\/p>\n That was also led by Xi, who was then China\u2019s vice-president.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The post Ex-Everton player jailed for bribery<\/a> appeared first on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 The former coach of the Chinese national men\u2019s football team has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for bribery, state media reported. Li Tie, who also played for Everton in the English Premier League, confessed earlier this year to fixing matches, accepting bribes, and offering bribes to get the top coaching job. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}