Achi news desk-
Former Chinese Football Manager Li Tie (Credit: AFP)
Local journalists gathered in front of the court in Hubei province where the case of 46-year-old Li will be heard.
Former China coach and former Everton midfielder Li Tie went on trial on Thursday on bribery allegations, state media said, as part of a wider crackdown on corruption in football in the country.
His former boss, Chinese Football Association chairman Chen Xuyuan, was jailed for life this week for taking $11 million in bribes.
The Chinese legal system is tightly controlled by the ruling Communist Party and courts have an almost 100 percent conviction rate in criminal cases.
Local journalists gathered in front of the court in Hubei province where the case of 46-year-old Li will be heard.
The head coach of China’s national men’s football team, Li Tie, revealed that he became the head coach by bribing with three million Chinese yuan. In one case, he spent up to 14 million yuan to buy the opposing team to deliberately lose a game. pic.twitter.com/hOZ4gWRJYd— Will Wong (@3Eyes_TruthNews) January 10, 2024
Li, who was China’s coach from January 2020 to December 2021, has been accused of giving and taking bribes, state broadcaster CCTV said.
Li, who played in the Premier League 34 times between 2002 and 2004, appeared in a CCTV documentary in January about widespread corruption in Chinese football.
CCTV regularly records criminals’ confessions before they appear in court, a practice widely condemned by rights groups.
In the program Li said he arranged nearly $421,000 in bribes to secure the position of head coach, and he helped fix matches when he was the coach of a club in the Chinese Premier League.
“I’m very sorry. I should have kept my head down and followed the right path,” said Li.
“There were some things that at the time were common practices in football,” he added.
Li played nearly 100 games for China.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)
