On the evening of January 9, the fourth episode of the TV feature film "Continue to Make Efforts to Promote in Depth" was broadcast. This episode focuses on a series of corruption cases in the field of football, Du Zhaocai, former deputy director of the General Administration of Sports of China and former secretary of the Party Committee of the Chinese Football Association, Chen Xuyuan, former chairman of the Chinese Football Association, and Li Tie, the former head coach of the Chinese national men's football team, have appeared on camera to confess.
The feature film revealed that in order to become the head coach of the men's national football team, Li Tie lobbied the Zall Club to pay for him to do the work, saying that if he could "get on top", he would also repay the club in many ways, and the club took out 2 million yuan to bribe Chen Xuyuan for this. On the other hand, Li Tie felt that Liu Yi, the secretary general of the Football Association at the time, also had a lot of right to speak, so he gave Liu Yi 1 million yuan out of his own pocket.
The day after confirming the position of head coach of the men's national football team, Li Tie flew to Wuhan to negotiate a deal with Zall Club. Li Tie signed a so-called "contract" with Zall Club with a total amount of 60 million yuan, but in fact, it was only used as a cover to cover up the essence of the power-for-money transaction. He quickly added four players from the Zall squad to the national squad.
The following is the relevant content of the commentary——
Since the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, as of November 2023, 670,000 cases have been filed by discipline inspection and supervision organs across the country, including 86 central management cadres, 3,533 departmental and bureau-level cadres, and 28,000 county-level cadres. Discipline inspection and supervision organs at all levels have maintained zero tolerance and strong deterrence, while persisting in promoting the "three non-corruptions" in an integrated manner throughout all work such as case handling and daily supervision, and have continuously achieved more institutional results and greater governance effectiveness. The in-depth doxxing of malpractices and corruption in football is a case in point.
On February 1, 2022, with the defeat of the Chinese men's national football team to Vietnam and the announcement of its failure to participate in the Qatar World Cup two rounds ahead of schedule, the expectations of Chinese fans once again ended in disappointment. Football is known as the "first sport" and is deeply loved by the people, and the development and revitalization of Chinese football is an inevitable requirement for building a sports power, and it is also the expectation of the broad masses of the people. However, while many sports in China are booming, the level of men's football has been declining, fake gambling scandals are frequent, and the industry is chaotic, and the expectations of the people are gradually drifting away. What happened to Chinese football? This is a question that countless fans have been asking for many years. Starting from the end of 2022, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission, together with the Discipline Inspection and Supervision Group of the General Administration of Sports of the People's Republic of China and the Hubei Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision, have adopted the "room-group-local" joint case-handling mechanism to thoroughly investigate a series of corruption cases in the football field and dig deep into the root causes of the problems behind them.
Yan Weiyao (Director of the Second Supervision and Inspection Office of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission): There has been systematic and collapsed corruption in the field of football, and the discipline inspection and supervision organs have struck hard, and they dare not, cannot, and do not want to advance in one piece, and the punishment is unprecedented.
In November 2022, Li Tie, the former head coach of the Chinese national men's football team, was investigated by the supervisory authorities, and the anti-corruption campaign in football kicked off. Subsequently, more than 10 high-level and middle-level cadres of the Chinese Football Association were reviewed and investigated, including: Du Zhaocai, former deputy director of the State General Administration of Sports and former secretary of the Party Committee of the Chinese Football Association, and Chen Xuyuan, former chairman of the Chinese Football Association. The discipline inspection and supervision organs will also work with the public security organs to investigate dozens of people involved in the case, covering coaches, players, referees, club executives, agents and other aspects. With the comprehensive and in-depth investigation of a series of cases, the deep-seated problems in the field of football have gradually emerged.
Du Zhaocai (former deputy director of the General Administration of Sports of the People's Republic of China and former secretary of the Party Committee of the Chinese Football Association): I often send money and goods to dredge things, which seems to have formed a bit like a convention in this regard.
Chen Xuyuan (former chairman of the Chinese Football Association): Corruption in Chinese football is not in one aspect, it is all-encompassing.
Li Tie (former head coach of the Chinese men's national football team): Some things feel like Xi things in the football circle, but now it seems that many things are illegal and criminal.
Li Tie was the first person to be subject to supervision and investigation and was detained in this project, and it has been proved that the choice of this entry point is very accurate. He has served as a coach in many clubs, and also served as the head coach of the Chinese national men's football team, and his relationship in the football field is intertwined.
Ding Jintian (Deputy Head of the Discipline Inspection and Supervision Group of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission in the State General Administration of Sports): As the stationed agency of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission, our group is based on its responsibilities and positioning, and after discovering Li Tie's abuse of power for personal gain, we will seriously investigate and deal with it on the one hand, and on the other hand, we want to use this as a breakthrough to discover the fundamental problems existing in Chinese football, and answer the questions of the majority of fans why Chinese men's football cannot go up, so as to promote the healthy development of Chinese football.
Luo Yu (staff of Hubei Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision): The reason why Li Tie was able to become the head coach of the national team is because he has led two Chinese A teams to successfully enter the Chinese Super League, which actually played a very good role in his industry status. But in fact, Li Tie led the team to the Chinese Super League twice, and there were a lot of match-fixing behind him.
Li Tie turned to coaching after retiring, and in August 2015, he joined Hebei Huaxia Happiness Club as head coach for the first time. At that time, there were only 9 games left in the season, and Huaxia Happiness was only ranked 6th, and the prospect of surpassing was not optimistic. As soon as Li Tie took office, the club bluntly proposed that he would use his connections to buy his opponents.
Li Tie: When I was a player, I hated the people who played match-fixing, but because I knew that these might help our team increase our chances and become the head coach of a team for the first time, I also had the mentality of wanting to prove myself.
The investigation found that the atmosphere of "Jinyuan football" driven by some wealthy clubs is an important catalyst for the deterioration of the atmosphere in Chinese football. Hebei Huaxia Happiness Club saw that Evergrande Club had brought a huge brand effect by investing in football, so it also tried to follow Evergrande's example of seeking short-term quick results through "burning money", and set the goal of surpassing success in the first year, qualifying for the AFC Champions League in the second year, and winning the Super League in the third year.
Meng Jing (former chairman of Hebei Huaxia Happiness Club): Our company's culture is to do everything possible to achieve the goal, and the so-called "doing everything possible" includes some improper means. I hope to get good results as soon as possible and have an impact on the company's brand.
After Li Tie took office, he played a magical "eight consecutive wins" in the last eight games of the season, which made Huaxia Happiness finally lead its competitors by one point and surpass success. After investigation, the so-called "super-miracle" is completely manipulated behind the back by the hand of money. For example, in the last game of the season, Huaxia Fortune must win or draw to ensure that it can surpass, and the club has spent a lot of money on it.
Meng Jing: In the last game, we spent about 14 million yuan, and we greeted the Shenzhen club, the head coach and the players.
At the same time, for the sake of multiple insurance, Li Tie's coaching team is responsible for directly buying the opposing players from the individual level. Li Tie instructed assistant coach Zheng Bin and contacted Zheng Bin's hometown in the Shenzhen team, the main defender Li Fei.
Zheng Bin (former assistant coach of Li Tie's team): Our strength should actually surpass it (Shenzhen Yuheng), that is, we can win by playing normally, but we want to get some ways to win 100%, and everyone just attaches too much importance to this result.
Li Fei offered 6 million yuan, saying that he would help them "dot" a number of key players, and Huaxia Happiness agreed. Ironically, if it weren't for this investigation, no one would have known that the 6 million Riffae had actually been taken by themselves.
Li Fei (player involved in the case): Actually, I didn't look for anyone, because at that time, whether it was the right time, the right place and the people, they all had the advantage, we were away at the time, and we had just finished the relegation, and our hearts were already scattered, so I thought about the last game, everyone was not injured, and we would have a holiday after the last game.
As Li Fei judged, his interception of the 6 million did not affect Huaxia Happiness and finally won 2:0. A game that should be won by strength, but it is inclined to take the crooked path of evil, behind the absurdity, is an extreme mentality of quick success.
Li Tie: Achieving "success" in this improper way will actually make you more and more eager to achieve quick results, in order to achieve results, find referees to do work, buy other players, coaches, and some clubs find clubs, this way has become a Xi, and even a little dependence later.
Li Tie tasted the "sweetness" of match-fixing in Huaxia Happiness Club, and when he was hired as the head coach of Wuhan Zall Club in 2017, he began to take the initiative to promote match-fixing to the club.
Tian Xudong (former chairman of Wuhan Zall Club): When I first came into contact with match-fixing, you might not have thought that it was Li Tie who came to me, so I said, as if this is not the Li Tie in my mind.
Under the instigation of Li Tie, Wuhan Zall Club also decided to "rush" at any cost. On October 6, 2018, Wuhan Zall successfully overtook three rounds ahead of schedule.
Luo Yu: Fans are invested in real feelings, but what they see is a fake show, and the memories of joy are all fictional, which will give people a feeling of instant collapse. This feeling actually erodes everyone's enthusiasm for football little by little.
An important reason why unhealthy trends continue to grow and spread in the football world is that the Chinese Football Association, which should have been responsible for supervision, has had many cadres who have been unable to resist the temptation and have been coerced into the club's capital game.
Chen Xuyuan: I also collected money from the club, so I wouldn't have caught this kind of trend, because if you go to catch this trend, isn't that what you are doing yourself, so in fact, this phenomenon should basically be laissez-faire.
On August 22, 2019, Chen Xuyuan was elected as the sixth chairman of the Chinese Football Association at the Xianghe National Football Training Base in Hebei Province. And the night before he was elected, two heads of local football associations knocked on his door one after another, and each gave him 300,000 yuan to "worship the pier", asking him to take care of him. Before Chen Xuyuan took office, he felt the huge benefits hidden in this circle, and then he was willing to fall into it.
Chen Xuyuan: Come to my room, put the backpack on my sofa, and say Chairman Chen, congratulations, congratulations, I hope you can take care of more, and then I said something, he said the old rules, we are all like this.
Chen Xuyuan, who can't stop the "old rules", naturally can't stop the club's huge gold yuan offensive, and he has received tens of millions of yuan from many clubs in the past few years. The chairman of the Football Association is like this, and the heads of many departments of the Football Association have also crossed the sea to show their powers. Through their case analysis, the task force found that although the Football Association is only a social organization, it actually holds huge public resources and public power, but its power has lost supervision and restraint, resulting in the popularity of "relying on football to eat football".
Luo Yu: The league management has long been indistinguishable, the Football Association is both supervised and organized, and the power is too centralized, which will definitely bring great risks. Regulators have also become "hunted", kidnapped by the club and the capital behind the club, giving up the right to supervise the football industry.
Du Zhaocai, former deputy director of the General Administration of Sports of the People's Republic of China and former secretary of the Party Committee of the Chinese Football Association, also used public and private weapons, "relying on sports to eat sports" and "relying on football to eat football", accepting tens of millions of yuan in property, and letting the chaos in football go unchecked.
Du Zhaocai: I didn't play a good role as a "goalkeeper" in the anti-corruption struggle of Chinese football, and in the "hunting" of the interests of the club owners, it was actually a subjective reason, and it was not strictly controlled, and some went with the flow.
In 2022, there were clues that some matches in the Chinese League were suspected of match-fixing, and after receiving the relevant clues, the General Administration of Sports of the People's Republic of China asked Du Zhaocai to take the lead in investigating and dealing with it, but Du Zhaocai secretly changed the concept and used the so-called "research" to perfunctory.
Cui Haifei (Second-level Inspector of the 16th Review and Investigation Office of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission): The investigation was changed to research, and no problems were found or dealt with, but only an investigation report was made. He should have led the Party Committee of the Chinese Football Association to shoulder the main responsibility of Chinese football in a comprehensive and strict manner, but he did not dare to grasp and manage, which also led to serious corruption in the field of Chinese football and the deterioration of the industry ecology to a certain extent.
In 2015, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Overall Plan for the Reform and Development of Chinese Football", emphasizing the need to focus on the long-term and lay a solid foundation. Du Zhaocai and Chen Xuyuan, as the heads of the Football Association, should have implemented the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and promoted reform as the first priority, however, they both felt that the reform was difficult and slow.
Chen Xuyuan: After reading the reform and development plan, I felt that I couldn't do many things in this matter, when the Football Association was in office. In fact, it is also a matter of political performance, I want to be in my office, the national team can participate in the World Cup, doesn't that prove that Chen Xuyuan is very capable.
At that time, there was another person who also wanted to bet on the World Cup, and that was Li Tie. He feels that the false record achieved by match-fixing has accumulated capital for the position of head coach of the men's national football team, but he still needs to push it again. In August 2019, when he learned that the Chinese Football Association was going to form a men's national selection team to participate in the East Asian Cup, he felt that the opportunity had come.
Li Tie: Because I really want to be the head coach of the national team, I thought of a lot of ways, found a lot of people to ask for help, and found the leaders of the Football Association, who could help me say good things and recommend me.
Li Tie's idea of bribery is the same as playing match-fixing, and he feels that he needs multiple insurances. On the one hand, he lobbied the Zall Club to pay for him to do the work, saying that if he could "get on top", he would also repay the club in many ways, and the club took out 2 million yuan to bribe Chen Xuyuan for this. On the other hand, Li Tie felt that Liu Yi, the secretary general of the Football Association at the time, also had a lot of right to speak, so he gave Liu Yi 1 million yuan out of his own pocket.
Chen Xuyuan: The club sent me money and recommended it to me, and he said that Chairman Chen Li Tie is a good person, and the head coach (position) of the national selection team can create an opportunity and a platform for his future.
Liu Yi (former secretary general of the Chinese Football Association) :(Li Tie) asked me to chat and talk about the construction of the national team, and at that time took this opportunity to give me money. He said that he hoped that the Secretary-General would give you more support, and I said no problem, I will definitely support you.
In this way, Li Tie became the head coach of the men's national football selection team as he wished, and after Lippi resigned, he was immediately appointed as the head coach of the men's national football team. The day after the position was confirmed, Li Tie flew to Wuhan to negotiate a deal with Zall Club.
Tian Xudong: In fact, it is an exchange of interests, and the conversation is very naked, which players I bring in, which player may give you playing time, and at the level of the Football Association, it will definitely have a good relationship and help you provide some resources. He gave us so many very tempting chips and asked us for money.
Li Tie and Zall Club signed a so-called "contract" with a total amount of 60 million yuan, but in fact, it was only used as a cover to cover up the essence of the power and money transaction. He quickly added four players from the Zall squad to the national squad.
Tian Xudong: When I saw the national team list that day, my face was red, what do you mean, I know the ability of our players, I can't get in, I can't get into any of them.
Once the selection of players and coaches is used as a weight for personal gain, it is inevitable that they will not produce results. What's more, systematic youth training and a healthy league are the foundation of the national team, when many parties are keen on short-term interests and ignore the investment in youth training; when the league is full of unhealthy tendencies, money may determine the outcome of the game, this kind of polluted football soil naturally cannot provide sufficient nutrients for cultivating talents. When fans were still looking forward to Li Tie being able to lead the men's national football team to the World Cup, many insiders already knew that such a miracle could not happen.
Li Fei: As insiders, we don't have confidence, really. Often you are in a negative game, you are in a very relaxed state from both psychological and physiological aspects, and you are not always in a very concentrated state to complete these techniques and tactics, then you have a long time, and you can't be tight when you want to tighten up again.
Zheng Bin: Modern football is absolutely scientific, and football games still need real games, so that players and coaches can be truly trained.
Li Tie was appointed as the head coach of the men's national football team on January 2, 2020, and "quit" on December 3, 2021 amid the scolding of fans. The result of quick success is that it rises quickly and falls quickly. I don't know if he still remembers that the reason why he was successful when he was a player was because he "couldn't run", not because he ran "fast".
Li Tie: I regret it very much. It is still necessary to be down-to-earth, but also to take the right path, not to rush for quick success, and not to do everything possible to take shortcuts.
[Commentary] It was not only Li Tie who fell on the road of taking shortcuts. Hebei Huaxia Happiness and Wuhan Zall Club have now announced their dissolution. Du Zhaocai and Chen Xuyuan also failed to get the "political achievements" they wanted, but both fell off. It's the same old saying: football is round, and no amount of power and money can shape it arbitrarily.
Chen Xuyuan: Fans can tolerate the backwardness of Chinese football, but they cannot forgive corruption. As the president of the Football Association, I am mainly responsible, I want to deeply apologize to the fans across the country, I was wrong, I really think I was wrong, I regret myself very much, there is no regret medicine to buy, if there is regret medicine to buy, I am willing to buy it back with my life, I will not do this kind of thing again.
The investigation and handling of a series of cases is a bone scraping and poison treatment in the football field, and there is still a lot to be done next. Chinese football has taken a lot of detours, but there will always be fans who are obsessed with it, and there will always be children who approach it with dreams. They are happy when they win, sad when they lose, everything is clear and real. Their original intentions need to be cared for by football managers and practitioners.
Reporter: Have you ever heard of match-fixing?
Little Player: I've heard of it. Because I heard that Li Tie was arrested, he was like this because of this.
Reporter: Some people say that I deliberately lost to you, are you willing?
Young player: I don't want to, I will be happier if I win with real strength.
Reporter: Do you want to play football when you grow up in the future?
Little player: Yes, I'm going to play, to play in the World Cup......
The anti-corruption in the field of football this time focuses not only on the present, but also on the future. In view of the systemic corruption problems and industrial chaos that have been discovered, the discipline inspection and supervision organs have carried out the work of using cases to promote reform and promote governance, earnestly strengthened supervision, and urged relevant units to profoundly learn lessons, so that success does not have to be done in my spirit. Only by the joint efforts of all parties and long-term achievements can we open a vibrant spring for the green field of Chinese football.
Yan Weiyao: Freezing three feet is not a day's cold, there must be a process of melting ice. The investigation and handling of a series of football corruption cases is not only to investigate and deal with those few people, but more importantly, to promote the change of the ecology of the football field through the investigation and handling of this case, and to promote the sports department to learn lessons, deepen reforms, improve the system, clean up the source, and restore the green field to a clear ecology.