Former China football coach says paid bribes for job in TV confession

BEIJING: The former Chinese national football team coach has made a televised confession in which he admitted to paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to secure the top job, as well as involvement in match-fixing.

Li Tie, a former Everton midfielder who served as the national team’s head coach, was placed under investigation in 2022, accused by authorities of “serious violations of the law”. No detailed information on the case has been available until his confession on Tuesday night, part of an anti-graft documentary aired on state broadcaster CCTV.

CCTV regularly airs confessions by criminal suspects, including former officials, before they have appeared in court -- a practice widely condemned by rights groups. In the programme, Li said he had arranged nearly $421,000 in bribes to secure the head coach position -- and to have helped fix matches when he was a club coach.

“I’m very sorry. I should have kept my head to the ground and followed the right path,” he said. “There were certain things that at the time were common practices in football,” he added.