The former coach of the Chinese national football team, Li Tie, made a televised confession on state broadcaster CCTV last Tuesday, admitting to paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to secure the top job, as well as his involvement in match-fixing. Chinese football is undergoing a major anti-corruption campaign. A number of prominent figures have been investigated or accused. 

Li Tie, the former Everton midfielder who took over as head coach of the national team, was placed under investigation in 2022, with authorities accusing him of "serious violations of the law". Until he confessed himself in an anti-corruption documentary aired by the state broadcaster CCTV, the suspicions had not been confirmed. CCTV regularly broadcasts confessions of criminal suspects, including former officials, before they appear in court. The practice has been widely condemned by human rights groups.

In his confession, he said that he had paid $421,000 in bribes to secure the head coaching job and to fix matches when he was a club coach. "I am very sorry. I should have kept my head down and followed the right path," the 46-year-old said. He was quoted by AFP as saying. "There were certain things that were customary in football at the time," he added. 

In the documentary, the former coach admitted that many of his professional ambitions had been fulfilled by the time he took over in 2002. Among his confessions, Li Tie revealed that he had asked Wuhan Zall, where he was coaching at the time, to intervene on his behalf with the Chinese Football Association (CFA), promising to return the favour. 

The club paid two million yuan ($281,000) in bribes to Chen Xuyuan, then president of the CFA and now also the subject of a corruption investigation. Li also personally donated one million yuan to the CFA general secretary. Following his appointment, four Wuhan Zall players were called up to the national team, players who were not qualified to play "at that level", according to the club president interviewed in the documentary.

Li Tie resigned from his post after China failed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. A year later, as 2022 drew to a close, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau began investigating him. Since then, around 10 CFA officials have been investigated and removed from office. One of them was the former president. 

He was investigated by the judicial authorities in the central province of Hubei. The Xianning city procuratorate filed a public indictment with the city court, as required by law, local media reported in August 2022. Then, in November, the Chinese authorities launched an investigation into alleged "serious violations of the law". Li Tie was detained.

As a player, he is one of the most important in Chinese history. He was a member of the national team at the 2002 World Cup, China's only World Cup appearance, and went on to play for Everton and Sheffield United. He went on to work as an assistant coach with Guangzhou Evergrande and, more importantly, with the Chinese national team alongside Italian Marcello Lippi. 

Li was in charge of Hebei China Fortune and Wuhan Zall, the team he was coaching when he allegedly left the bench to take over the national team in an attempt to qualify the country for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. He failed, and allegations of bribery and match-fixing continued until his televised confession.