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BEIJING. — The former vice president of the Chinese Football Association has been sentenced to 11 years in prison and fined 1 million yuan ($139,579.03) for taking bribes, state news agency Xinhua reported on Monday, citing a court ruling.
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. — Reuters.
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Mathew Masinge