Chinese Football Vice President Sentenced to 11 Years in Prison for Bribery

BEIJING - The ex-vice president of the Chinese Football Association has received an 11-year prison sentence and a 1 million yuan ($139,579.03) fine for accepting bribes, as reported by state news agency Xinhua on Monday, following a court decision.

Li Yuyi's sentence follows probes into more than a dozen high-level soccer officials since late 2022.

The sport has long grappled with corruption, which fans have blamed for the enduring underperformance of the national team. In 2012, two former chiefs of the same soccer association were each sentenced to 10-1/2 years in jail for taking bribes.

In March, a former chief of China's soccer association was sentenced to life in prison for accepting more than $10 million in bribes, in one of the biggest anti-corruption probes in the sport in years.