Former Chinese football team head coach sentenced to 20 years in prison

Li Tie, former head coach of the Chinese men's national soccer team, was taken to court by police on the morning of December 13. Apart from his defense attorney, no one from Li's family was present to hear the verdict.

Li Tie, 47, was placed under investigation by the Hubei Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection on November 26, 2022, for suspected serious violations of the law. On August 2, 2023, the Xianning City People's Procuratorate proposed to prosecute the former head coach of the Chinese men's soccer team on five counts of giving and accepting bribes.

At the first instance trial on March 28, 2024, Mr. Ly pleaded guilty and expressed remorse.

According to the indictment of the People's Procuracy of Hamining City, from 2019 to 2021, Li Tie took advantage of his position as head coach of the national men's football team to assist relevant units and individuals in selecting players for the national team, winning matches, signing contracts with clubs... and illegally received a total amount of more than 50.89 million yuan.

In 2019, while he was the coach of Wuhan Zall Club, Mr. Li made a deal with the person in charge of the club, promising many benefits so that the other party would spend 2 million yuan to bribe officials to promote him as head coach of the national men's football team. In 2020, Mr. Li personally bribed officials 1 million yuan to seek the position of head coach.

From 2017 to 2019, Mr. Li took advantage of his position as general manager and coach of Wuhan Zall Club to assist Hebei Huaxia Fortune Club in player transfers, winning matches and other matters, thereby receiving a total of 26.75 million yuan from Hebei Huaxia Fortune Club.

From 2015 to 2019, while serving at Wuhan Zall and Hebei China Fortune, Mr. Li colluded with the club's manager to collude with other clubs to fix matches. Wuhan Zall and Hebei Huaxia Fortune gave a total of 39.05 million yuan to the people involved to achieve their goals.

The total amount of illegal proceeds related to Mr. Li amounted to 119.69 million yuan.

The Li Tie case kicked off a campaign against corruption in Chinese football. More than a dozen senior and mid-level officials of the Chinese Football Association were investigated, exposing many serious problems.

In March 2024, three former officials from the Chinese Football Association, Wuhan Football Association and Chengdu Football Association were tried in Hubei Province for embezzlement and bribery.

On March 26, Chen Tuoyuan, former president of the Chinese Football Association, was sentenced to life in prison for accepting more than 81 million yuan in bribes over 13 years. Five other former officials were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 2 years and 6 months to 14 years.