The case of Li Tie, the former head coach of the national football team: The court notified that the verdict would be pronounced in the first instance on December 13

In the case of Li Tie, the former head coach of the Chinese national men's football team (hereinafter referred to as the "Chinese men's football team") and a well-known football player, the court has notified his defender that the case will be announced in open court by the Intermediate People's Court of Xianning City, Hubei Province tomorrow, that is, on December 13, 2024, Beijing time. In the previous court hearing, although Li Tie said that he "pleaded guilty and repented", he did not "admit guilt and accept punishment".

On December 12, 2024, people familiar with the matter informed the above information to the reporter of the Economic Observer.

Born in May 1977 in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, Li Tie has made great achievements in his career as an athlete. He entered the Liaoning youth team in 1992, and was selected for the Jianlibao football team in 1993 to study in Brazil. In 1997, he returned to China to participate in the 1998 World Cup qualifiers in France. In 1998, after the Jianlibao team returned to China and was disbanded, Li Tie returned to the Liaoning team. In 2001, Li Tie was elected as the "Chinese Footballer of the Year" and won the "Best Player of the A League", and in the same year, as one of the main players of the Chinese men's football team, he participated in the qualifying group stage and the top ten matches of the 2002 South Korea-Japan World Cup, and successfully entered the World Cup finals for the first time in the history of the Chinese men's football team.

After the 2002 World Cup, Li Tie played in England and played for Everton in the Premier League for four seasons. After retiring, Li Tie began his coaching career, successively serving as assistant coach and head coach in Guangzhou Evergrande, Hebei Huaxia Fortune, Wuhan Zall and other football clubs. During this time, he also served as an assistant coach in the Chinese men's football team.

In 2019, Li Tie served as the head coach of the Chinese men's national football team and led the team to participate in the East Asian Cup. In January 2020, he officially became the head coach of the Chinese national football team. In December 2021, Li Tie resigned gloomily because of his poor performance in leading the team to participate in the Asian qualifiers for the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

In November 2022, Li Tie was subject to the supervision and investigation of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the State Supervision Commission, the Discipline Inspection and Supervision Team of the State General Administration of Sports and the Hubei Provincial Supervision Commission on suspicion of serious violations.

In 2023, Li Tie's case will be investigated by the Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision and will enter the procuratorate's review and prosecution stage.

The prosecution alleged that Li Tie was involved in five counts: accepting bribes, offering bribes, offering bribes by units, accepting bribes by non-state functionaries, and offering bribes to non-state functionaries.

In August 2023, the official public announced that Li Tie's case was investigated and investigated by the Chibi Municipal Supervision Commission and the Chibi Municipal Public Security Bureau in Xianning, Hubei Province, and transferred to the procuratorate for review and prosecution. Upon designation by the Hubei Provincial People's Procuratorate, the Xianning Municipal People's Procuratorate is to combine the cases for review and prosecution. The Xianning Municipal People's Procuratorate has filed a public prosecution with the Xianning Intermediate People's Court.

On March 28, 2024, the first-instance trial of Li Tie's case was held in open court at the Xianning Intermediate People's Court.

The Xianning Municipal People's Procuratorate alleged: From 2019 to 2021, Li Tie took advantage of his position as the head coach of the Chinese men's national football team and the head coach of the Chinese men's national football team, or the convenience of his authority and status, to provide assistance to relevant units and individuals in matters such as players being selected for the national team, winning games, and signing clubs, and illegally accepted a total of more than 50.89 million yuan from others. In 2019, Li Tiewei was elected as the head coach of the men's national football team, asked others to help, and later gave others RMB 1 million in 2020. In 2019, during his tenure at Wuhan Zall Professional Football Club Co., Ltd., Li Tie agreed with the person in charge of the club to ask others for help in order to seek the benefits of being elected as the head coach of the men's national football selection team and improving the influence of Zall Club, and the club gave others RMB 2 million. From 2017 to 2019, Li Tie took advantage of his position as the general manager and head coach of Zall Club to provide assistance to Hebei Huaxia Happiness Football Club Co., Ltd. in matters such as player transfers and winning games, and successively received a total of RMB 26.75 million from Huaxia Club. From 2015 to 2019, during Li Tie's tenure at Huaxia Club and Zall Club, in order to win the game or obtain favorable results, he agreed with the person in charge of the club to ask other football clubs to cooperate or play negatively in the game, and Huaxia Club and Zall Club gave a total of more than 39.05 million yuan to the relevant personnel.

The above charges show that Li Tie is suspected of accepting bribes of more than 50.89 million yuan, 1 million yuan for suspected bribery, 2 million yuan for suspected unit bribery, 26.75 million yuan for suspected non-state functionaries, and 39.05 million yuan for suspected bribery of non-state functionaries. The total amount involved in the five cases exceeded 119 million yuan.

According to the TV feature film "Continue to Make Efforts to Advance in Depth" jointly produced by the Propaganda Department of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the State Supervision Commission and China Central Radio and Television, Li Tiewei became the head coach of the Chinese men's football team and paid a bribe of 1 million yuan to Liu Yi, then secretary general of the Chinese Football Association, out of his own pocket in 2020; At the same time, he lobbied Zall Club to pay a bribe of 2 million yuan to Chen Xuyuan, then chairman of the Chinese Football Association.

The 1 million yuan from his own pocket is suspected of bribery; The 2 million yuan invested by Zall Club is suspected of the crime of offering bribes by the unit.

The above-mentioned TV feature film also revealed that after Li Tie served as the head coach of the Chinese men's football team, he reciprocated by selecting four players from Wuhan Zall Club into the squad of the Chinese men's national football team.

According to a public notice from the Hubei Provincial High People's Court, at the first-instance trial of the court on March 28, 2024, Li Tie expressed "pleading guilty and repenting".

A person familiar with the matter told the Economic Observer reporter that although Li Tie said that he "pleaded guilty and repented", he did not "admit guilt and accept punishment".

The so-called "admitting guilt and accepting punishment" simply means that the criminal suspect or defendant has no objection to the facts of the crime charged by the prosecution, and agrees with the sentencing opinion given by the prosecution and signs an affidavit.

It is worth mentioning that since 2024, at least 13 Chinese football practitioners have been sentenced by the judiciary for being involved in corruption cases.

This includes Chen Xuyuan, former chairman of the Chinese Football Association, Yu Hongchen, former vice chairman of the Chinese Football Association, Li Yuyi, former vice chairman of the Chinese Football Association, Liu Yi, former secretary general of the Chinese Football Association, Chen Yongliang, former executive deputy secretary general of the Chinese Football Association and director of the national team management department, Huang Song, former director of the Competition Department of the Chinese Football Association, Qi Jun, former director of the Strategic Planning Department of the Chinese Football Association, Tan Hai, former director of the referee management department of the Chinese Football Association, Ma Chengquan, former chairman of the Chinese Super League, Dong Zheng, former general manager of the Chinese Super League, Fu Xiang, former director of the Wuhan Football Sports Management Center, Liu Lei, former deputy director of Wuhan National Fitness Center, and Gu Jianming, former chairman and secretary general of Chengdu Football Association.

Among them, Chen Xuyuan was sentenced to the heaviest sentence. On March 26, 2024, the Intermediate People's Court of Huangshi City, Hubei Province, announced the verdict and sentenced Chen Xuyuan to life imprisonment, deprivation of political rights for life, and confiscation of all personal property for the crime of accepting bribes. The court found that the amount of bribes accepted by Chen Xuyuan was equivalent to more than 81.03 million yuan, of which 4 million yuan was not actually obtained.

The case of Liu Yi, the former secretary general of the Chinese Football Association, who has an intersection with Li Tie's case, was also tried by the Xianning Intermediate People's Court. On December 11, 2024, the Xianning Intermediate People's Court publicly announced that Liu Yi was guilty of accepting bribes and sentenced to 11 years in prison and a fine of RMB 3.6 million.