The Japan Times - China issues 73 life bans, punishes top football clubs for match-fixing

Under President Xi Jinping, an anti-corruption crackdown has swept through Chinese football in recent years, exposing the rotten state of the professional game.

Several top officials in the Chinese Football Association (CFA) have been brought down, while dozens of players have been banned for match-fixing and gambling.

Thursday's statement did not specify when the most recently announced match-fixing took place, or how it worked.

The punishments were made after a "systematic review" and were needed "to enforce industry discipline, purify the football environment, and maintain fair competition", the CFA wrote on its official social media account Thursday.

Li, a former Everton player who led the national team from 2019 to 2021, is already serving a 20-year prison sentence for bribery, after being sentenced in December 2024.

He is now banned from all football activities for life, alongside 72 others, the CFA statement said.

Among them is Chen Xuyuan, former chairman of the CFA, who is already serving life in prison for accepting bribes worth $11 million.

- Negative start to season -

The football clubs that will be punished are similarly high-profile.

Of the 16 clubs that competed in the 2025 season in the country's top Chinese Super League (CSL), 11 will have points docked and be fined.

After relegations, this means that when the 2026 CSL season starts in March, nine teams will start with negative points totals.

Tianjin Jinmen Tiger and last season's runners-up Shanghai Shenhua face the stiffest sanctions, with 10-point reductions and one-million-yuan ($144,000) fines.

Shanghai Port, champions for the last three seasons, will face a five-point reduction and a 400,000-yuan fine, the same punishment given to Beijing Guoan.

The CFA did not detail the club's specific infractions, saying only that they related to "match-fixing, gambling, and bribery", with their punishments "based on the amount, circumstances, nature, and social impact of the improper transactions involved".

"We will always maintain a zero-tolerance deterrent and high-pressure punitive force, and investigate and deal with any violation of discipline or regulations in football as soon as they are discovered, without any leniency or tolerance," the CFA said.

Many of China's professional teams are already in financial trouble.

Guangzhou FC, the most successful club in the CSL's history, folded in 2025 after it failed to settle its debts in time for the new season.

President Xi is a football fan who has said he dreams of China hosting and winning the World Cup one day.

China didn't qualify for the World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the United States this summer.

K.Abe--JT