2 more top Chinese football officials netted in corruption crackdown

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Besides holding his CFA post, Li was the party secretary and head of Shanghai’s Jinshan district, and held several other senior roles during those years.

In its verdict, an intermediate court in central China’s Hubei province said that that Li did favours for football clubs facing relegation, and also helped companies to secure construction projects during his leadership of Jinshan, the CFA, and the Chinese Super League Company – which handles commercial matters for the eponymous major professional football league.

A separate court in Hubei handed down a 11-year sentence to Fu Xiang, a former director of the sport’s administrative centre in provincial capital Wuhan and vice-chairman of the Wuhan Football Association.

Fu was guilty of embezzlement, taking and giving bribes, according to state news agency Xinhua. The court statement did not specify the time frame when the crimes were committed.

Li’s case dated back among the farthest in the long list of high-profile officials investigated and sentenced over the past year or so.

While the officials on the list belonged to a range of sports administrations – ranging from track and field and rowing to winter sports – the high-profile football sector has taken centre stage in the investigations, with allegations including bribery and match-fixing.

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The most severe penalty thus far has been the life sentence handed down in March to Chen Xuyuan, who was CFA chairman from 2019 to 2021. The court said he had accepted bribes “in particularly large amounts” and “seriously damaging fair competition and order in the football sector”.

He was found guilty of taking bribes worth 81.03 million yuan between 2010 and 2023. This included his term as the president and chairman of Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG) from 2010 to 2019 before he took the helm at the CFA.

SIPG owns the football club that bears the same name and won the Chinese Super League in 2018.

At least three other senior national football officials received heavy court penalties for corruption this year, including former CFA executive deputy secretary general Chen Yongliang; former CFA vice-chairman and ex-president of the Chinese Athletics Association, Yu Hongchen; and former CFA Super League general manager Dong Zheng.

Liu Lei, the former head of the competition department at the Wuhan Football Association, where Fu served as vice-chair, received a 30-month jail sentence in March. The association is in charge of organising football games and training programmes around the city.

An investigation was announced into Ma Chengquan, an ex-chairman of the Chinese Super League Company, at the same time as that for Li Yuyi.

Ma’s trial began in March but a verdict has yet to be announced, according to party mouthpiece People’s Daily.

In another high-profile case, Li Tie, the former head coach of the men’s national football team and a former English Premier League player, is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in April to accepting more than US$10 million in bribes between 2017 and 2021.

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