The Black Whistle: Corruption and the Fight for Chinese Football

Edited by Andrew Song

The text reads: "Former Chinese Football Association president Chen Xuyuan was sentenced to life imprisonment in the first‑instance trial."

The infamous points deduction scandal in the Chinese Super League during the 2026 season has resulted in 9 penalized teams starting with negative points in the top division and a total of 4 other clubs punished throughout lower levels of professional football. Chastisements for historical match-fixing, gambling, bribery, and improper transaction cases, these punishments have basically been applied to all clubs that were part of the Chinese Super League during the reign of Chen Xuyuan, infamous former CFA President imprisoned for life due to his acceptance of more than $10M in bribes. The enactment of this harsh punishment culminates “zero-tolerance” efforts from the Chinese Football Association for the past years dedicated to the cleansing of the sport’s ecosystem, intended to be the decisive knockout punch in the long battle with corruption in Chinese football.

Post by the CFA detailing the point deductions coming the 2026 season

The CSL (Chinese Super League) has an notorious history for corruption. Referee bribing became a common practice for clubs even before the establishment of the current league in 2004. Back in Chinese Football’s antiquated top-flight, the Jia-A League, the infamous symbol of a black whistle was well accustomed to the fans as a symbolism of match fixing and referee bribery. This issue led to a systemic decay that eventually desensitized relative departments from this astounding phenomenon. By 2001, it was estimated that around 70-80% of the league’s referees had taken bribes in previous matches. Higher league officials also partook in the manipulation of referee assignments. An early example being Zhang Jianqiang, former director of the CFA’s referee committee. Some of his most notable manipulations include arranging referee assignments for Shaanxi Guoli in 1997 to win promotion for a compensation of 400,000 RMB and for Shanghai Shenhua in 2003 to win a title match for 700,000 RMB. This strong intricacy and deep involvement of multiple parties from Football Association officials to referees and finally to football players and club owners proves the appalling scope and severity of this corruption, reflecting the need for a potent cleansing of China’s football environment. This led to the first major crackdown against corruption in Chinese professional football. Initiated in late 2009, the first major crackdown was a nationwide coordinated law enforcement campaign. Through detaining high profile violators, the police was able to expand the scale of investigation, ultimately resulting in sanctions against 33 officials, players, referees and a total of 12 clubs. This had a brief remedying effect on Chinese Football, leading to the “Golden Era” in the 2010s characterized by immense economic input that resulted in various luxurious signings and two notable wins of the Asian Champions League by Guangzhou Evergrande.

However, the Golden Era of Chinese Football paradoxically spurred more corruption. As clubs competition intensified, massive spendings were also injected into the market as superstars such as Oscar, Paulinho, Drogba and Anelka began landing in the CSL. This extravagant spending was significantly unsustainable, forcing clubs to chase short term glory in order to maximize the turnouts of their investments. At that time, Guangzhou Evergrande was the apparent superpower in the league, dominating league titles and spending astonishing sums on foreign superstars and domestic talents, placing immense pressure on other clubs for title contention. This desperation ultimately culminated in more severe match-fixing, bribery, and corruption incidents involving greater fees.

One of the most notorious and unexpected examples was the corruption case of Li Tie. As a former Chinese national, and the starter in China’s 2002 World Cup squad, Li Tie stated during his athletic career that he detested match-fixing and bribery.

Li Tie during his stint as head coach of the Chinese Men’s National Team

However, during his coaching career as the manager of Hebei China Fortune and later Wuhan Zall, he orchestrated match-fixing by bribing other clubs to achieve favorable results. To this objective, he paid over 39.05M in RMB, protruding the sheer size and brazenness of his corruption. Later during his spell at Wuhan Zall, he utilized his position as the club’s manager to assist his former club Hebei in transfers and match manipulations, receiving over 26.75M RMB for himself. His avarice soon escalated: as Li Tie sought to become the head coach for the Chinese national team, he expended a total of 2M RMB through his club to CFA officials that helped him acquire the job. In total, the value of bribes that Li Tie gave and received culminated to a stunning sum of approximately 120M RMB. This resulted to a 20-year imprisonment sentence, setting off the second wave of anti-corruption efforts in Chinese football.

A more comprehensive and robust effort than the first, the second wave’s punishments were unprecedented in scale and involved some of Chinese Football’s most powerful figures. Aside from Li Tie, former CFA president Chen Xuyuan was eventually sentenced to lifelong imprisonment for bribery. In addition, a total of 73 individuals were banned for life from any football-related activities. This list contained plenty of notable names such as former CFA party chief and vice-minister of sports Du Zhaocai, former women’s national team head coach Hao Wei and multiple former national team players. Club sanctions were also deployed, ultimately culminating in the infamous 2026 points deduction case that left half the league starting with negative points.

       The malign corruption practices historically prevalent throughout Chinese football has been the worm in the apple, eating away at the integrity, reputation and the financial worth of China’s top football league. Most importantly, it frames the ecosystem of football as unethical and contaminated. Not only does this blockade investors from entering this realm, it also discourages children and families from wholeheartedly pursuing this sport, somewhat accounting for the sluggish performance of Chinese football in recent decades. Despite the unprecedented strength and meticulousness of this effort, the quick bounce back of corruption from the first wave of eradication efforts thoroughly demonstrates the necessity for cohesive, sustainable and continuous reforms to consolidate the outcomes. The lessons from the past have to be learned for the future restoration of a clean and prosperous football ecosystem in China.