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The former vice president of the Chinese Football Association has been sentenced to 11 years in prison and fined 1 million yuan ($139,579.03) for taking bribes, state news agency Xinhua reported on Monday, citing a court ruling.
Li Yuyi‘s sentence follows probes into more than a dozen high-level soccer officials since late 2022.
Fu Xiang, a former director of the sport’s administrative centre in provincial capital Wuhan and vice-chairman of the Wuhan Football Association, was also sentenced to 11 years in prison by a court in Hubei, reports the South China Morning Post.
Fu was guilty of embezzlement, taking and giving bribes, reports the Morning Post, citing state news agency Xinhua.
The sport has long grappled with corruption, which fans have blamed for the enduring underperformance of the national team. In 2012, two former chiefs of the same soccer association were each sentenced to 10-1/2 years in jail for taking bribes.
In March, a former chief of China’s soccer association was sentenced to life in prison for accepting more than $10 million in bribes, in one of the biggest anti-corruption probes in the sport in years.
Song Kai was named as the new chairman of the Chinese Football Association (CFA) in October 2023, with Sun Wen, Yuan Yongqing, Yang Xu and Xu Jiren named as CFA vice presidents.
Over a dozen officials working in the football sector have been placed under investigation since November 2022, state media have reported.
Their World Cup 2026 qualification campaign began in November, with the convoluted Asian section of qualifying pitching them in with South Korea, Thailand and Singapore. China currently sit second in their group on eight points – eight behind South Korea and level with Thailand. The top two progress to round three, with the top two of each group in that next section reaching the World Cup finals in Canada, Mexico and USA.
