Imprisonment of former association head Chen Xuyuan after corruption

Former Chinese Football Association chairman Chen Xuyuan has been sentenced to life in prison for corruption. As the state news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday, four other officials who also accepted bribes were sentenced to prison.

A court in the central Chinese province of Hubei justified the verdict against Chen on the grounds that he used his various positions between 2010 and 2023 to influence project awards and in return received bribes and valuables worth more than 81 million yuan (about 10, 4 million euros). The court ruled that Chen had “seriously violated the order of fair competition” and “caused enormous damage to football in China.”

Chen confirmed that he had accepted money

In mid-February 2023 it became known that a disciplinary commission was investigating the then president of the football association. Chen was indicted in September. In the months following the investigation against him, other officials were targeted by investigators. On Tuesday, verdicts were handed down against Dong Zheng, Chen Yongliang, Yu Hongchen and Liu Lei. They were sentenced to prison terms of between two and a half and 14 years.

The bribes were “particularly large” and Chen’s actions “seriously damaged fair competition and order,” said a report in the Communist Party-run newspaper People’s Daily in support of the verdict. It “caused serious consequences for the national football industry”. In January, Chen admitted in a television documentary that he had accepted money from people who wanted to ingratiate themselves with him.

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The corruption scandal represents a setback for the goal of the football-loving state and party leader Xi Jinping to make the People’s Republic a great football nation. So far, China has only qualified for a World Cup once. In 2002 it was over in the preliminary round after three defeats. Chinese football is repeatedly confronted with allegations of corruption.