A former Chinese football manager and national team coach is among the 73 people to be permanently banned for match-fixing.
The Chinese Football Association has permanently banned 73 people, including former national team coach Li Tie, and punished 13 top professional clubs for match-fixing and corruption.
Under President Xi Jinping, a crackdown on corruption has been rampant in Chinese soccer in recent years, exposing the corrupt state of professional soccer.
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Several executives of the Chinese Football Association (CFA) have been sacked and dozens of players have been suspended on charges of match-fixing and gambling.
The statement Thursday night did not say when or how the recently announced match-fixing took place.
The sanction was made following a “systematic review” and was necessary “to strengthen industry discipline, cleanse the football environment and maintain fair competition,” the CFA said on its official social media accounts on Thursday.
Lee, a former Everton player who managed the national team from 2019 to 2021, is already serving a 20-year prison sentence for bribery in December 2024.
He, along with 72 others, has been permanently banned from all football activities, according to a CFA statement.
Among them is former CFA president Chen Xueyuan, who is already serving a life sentence for accepting $11 million worth of bribes.
The soccer clubs receiving punishment are similarly high-profile.
Of the 16 clubs that participated in the 2025 season in China’s top league, the China Super League (CSL), 11 clubs will have points deducted and be fined.
This means that after relegation, nine teams will start with a negative points total when the 2026 CSL season begins in March.
Tianjin Kinmen Tigers and last year’s runners-up Shanghai Shenhua face the toughest sanctions: a 10-point deduction and a fine of 1 million yuan (about $144,000).
Shanghai Port, the winner of the past three seasons, will receive a five-point deduction and the same fine of 400,000 yuan as Beijing Guoan.
The CFA did not provide details about the club’s specific offenses, saying only that they related to “match-fixing, gambling and bribery” and that sanctions would be taken “based on the amount, circumstances, nature and social impact of the inappropriate transactions involved”.
“We will always maintain zero-tolerance deterrence and an aggressive disciplinary force, investigating and dealing with any breaches of discipline or regulations in football without tolerance or leniency as soon as they are discovered,” the CFA said.
Many of China’s professional teams are already in financial trouble.
Guangzhou FC, the most successful club in CSL history, was disbanded in 2025 after failing to pay off its debts in time for the new season.
President Xi is a soccer fan and has said he dreams of China hosting and winning the World Cup someday.
China missed out on qualifying for this summer’s World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the United States.
On January 15, U.S. federal prosecutors indicted 20 people, including 15 former college basketball players, for what they called a gambling scheme to rig games between the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), putting Chinese basketball in the spotlight.
