Achi news desk-
China’s former soccer coach and former Everton midfielder Li Tie pleaded guilty Thursday to accepting more than $10 million in bribes, a court said, as part of a wider crackdown on corruption in Chinese soccer.
His former boss, discredited Chinese Football Association chairman Chen Xuyuan, was jailed for life this week for taking $11 million in bribes.
China’s 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 the central province of Hubei where the case of 46-year-old Li was heard.
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Li, who was China’s coach from January 2020 to December 2021, has been charged with giving and taking bribes, as well as participating in match-fixing, the Hubei court said in a statement on Thursday.
Li received more than 77 million yuan ($10.7 million) in bribes between 2017 and 2021, including during his time working as a coach for the Wuhan Zall club, the court said.
“Li Tie made his final statement, pleaded guilty and expressed remorse,” the court said, adding that a sentence would be announced later.
Li, who played in the Premier League 34 times between 2002 and 2004, appeared in a documentary broadcast by state broadcaster CCTV 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 that he helped fix matches when he was a club coach in the Chinese Super 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.”
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)
