Li Tie former Everton player who made 33 appearances for Everton during a loan spell from boyhood side Liaoning in the 2002-03 season, also one of the most talented Chinese players of his generation and capped 92 times by his country, confessed to paying bribes for match fixing and for this has been sentenced to life in prison, according to reports in his native China.
(Match fixing refer to games where the outcome has been predetermined, often through illicit means. In these instances, the result of the match is no longer a product of the teams’ abilities or performance on the field but rather a prearranged agreement between interested parties.)
The 46 former Everton player Li Tie, was embroiled in a match fixing corruption scandal after publicly admitting that he paid 3 million yuan in bribes in order to manage China’s national team, the ex-defensive midfielder admitted to taking part in a match fixing scandal which earned promotions for his club teams.
Li Tie has admitted to successfully match fixing while he was the head coach of Hebei China Fortune and later Wuhan Zall. The Wuhan-based side won promotion from China League One as champions in 2018.
After confessing to the match fixing scandal in an interview with the Chinese national television CCTV, Li Tie gave a second interview which contains the following statements: “I’m very sorry. I should have kept my head to the ground and followed the right path. “There were certain things that at the time were common practices in football. By gaining ‘success’ through such improper means, it actually made me more and more impatient and eager for quick results.
Li Tie is not the only one who will face a prison sentence due to the match fixing scandal, in fact according to what emerged in the following days, the former head of the Chinese Football Association, Chen Xuyuan and current vice-president Du Zhaocai were sentenced respectively to 15 and 13 years in prison.