The former president of the Chinese Football Association has been sentenced to life in prison amid a wide-ranging crackdown on sports corruption.
Chinese courts yesterday handed down sentences of between eight years and life in prison to officials in the Communist Party-controlled sports programs, accusing them of taking bribes and committing other financial crimes.
The former CFA president, Chen Xuyuan, received a life sentence for helping fix matches and using his various positions to commit financial crimes, state media reported.
It was reported that all of Chen’s personal property would be confiscated and his illegal gains would be recovered and turned over to the state treasury.
Other high-ranking officials sentenced to prison for taking bribes included the former head of the National Athletics Association, Hong Chen, who was sentenced to 13 years, former high-ranking soccer official Chen Yongliang, who received 14 years, and Dong Zheng, former CEO of Chinese Football Association Super League Company, for eight years.
The league is largely backed by real estate firms that have become overextended and cannot deliver finished apartments or pay back their debts.
The payments to players whom they hoped would make them ever-bigger in China and possibly international brand names have come askew amid concerns about company finances in the world’s second largest economy.
China’s domestic soccer leagues have long struggled with corruption and financial instability, while the national men’s and women’s teams languish in the international ranks, despite earlier successes.
Corruption in the sport is mainly linked to payoffs to players and referees to produce an outcome that benefits gambling syndicates.
There have also been allegations that payments were made to gain players spots at training camps for top teams, including the men’s national squad, which is now ranked 88th by FIFA. The Chinese women’s team occupies 19th place.
Xi Jinping, China’s head of state and leader of the ruling Communist Party, had previously announced plans to make China a football superpower through the enrollment of children in newly constructed academies aided by the construction of thousands of new pitches.
An economic slowdown and government involvement in sports, culture and private business have weighed on the potential success of those goals.
National skipper Zhang Linpeng last week quit international football over the disgrace of a World Cup qualifying draw with Singapore, before reversing his decision.
Chen held other positions in football before serving as CFA chairman from 2019 until he came under investigation in February last year.
In January, Chen appeared in a televised documentary confessing to having accepted money from those wishing to get in his good books.
“Fans can accept the fact that the state of Chinese football is bad. But they cannot forgive corruption,” Chen said in the documentary.
Rulings in other major graft cases are expected to be announced on Tuesday, according to state news agency Xinhua.
They may include the fate of the former coach Li, who was close to Chen.
The former Everton midfielder admitted in the January documentary that he arranged nearly $430,000 in bribes to secure that position and also helped fix matches when he was a club coach.
“There were certain things that at the time were common practices in football,” he said.
The former chairman of the Chinese Football Association has been sentenced to life in prison for accepting bribes worth $11 million, state media said Tuesday, as a string of sports officials were jailed for corruption.
Under President Xi Jinping a sweeping crackdown on official graft has struck hard at China’s sports industry, especially football.
About 10 senior leaders and executives of the CFA, including former national team coach Li Tie, have been brought down in recent years.
Former chairman Chen Xuyuan took advantage of his positions at the CFA and other bodies to “illegally accept sums of money from other people totalling 81.03 million yuan ($11 million)”, the Communist Party-run People’s Daily newspaper said.
The bribes were “particularly huge” and his actions “seriously damaged fair competition and order”, the report said.
He “caused serious consequences for the national football industry”, it added.
Xi is a self-confessed football fanatic who has said he dreams of his country hosting and winning the World Cup.
That ambition appears further away than ever after the corruption probe and years of disappointing results on the pitch.
National skipper Zhang Linpeng last week quit international football over the disgrace of a World Cup qualifying draw with Singapore, before reversing his decision.
Chen held other positions in football before serving as CFA chairman from 2019 until he came under investigation in February last year.
In January, Chen appeared in a televised documentary confessing to having accepted money from those wishing to get in his good books.
“Fans can accept the fact that the state of Chinese football is bad,” Chen said in the documentary.
“But they cannot forgive corruption.”
Rulings in other major graft cases are expected to be announced on Tuesday, according to state news agency Xinhua.
They may include the fate of the former coach Li, who was close to Chen.
The former Everton midfielder admitted in the January documentary that he arranged nearly $430,000 in bribes to secure that position and also helped fix matches when he was a club coach.