Some 38 professional footballers, and five club chiefs, have been banned from the sport for life by the Chinese Football Association over their part in a major gambling and match fixing ring.
Gu Chao and Jin Jingdao, with two and 18 caps for China respectively, and Son Jun-ho, who has been capped 20 times by South Korea, are amongst the most high-profile of the players to be suspended indefinitely for their role in the scandal.
The Korean’s alleged activities were so extreme he was found to have ‘seriously violated sports ethics and sportsmanship, causing a significant negative impact on society.’
Guo Tianyu, who won the Chinese Super League with Shandong Taishan as recently as 2021, is another to have been handed a lifetime ban.
The investigation by the Chinese football regulator, which took a full two years to complete – such was the scale of the corruption, has concluded that a staggering 120 games were manipulated in some way, with 41 different clubs embroiled knowingly in the scheme.
For now, authorities are staying tight-lipped on the precise details of the scandal, which has shocked Chinese football to its core.
One Rule for One
In all, 43 individuals have been banned for life from any involvement in football in China, with a further 17 receiving five-year bans for their part in the latest corruption scandal to hit the sport in the country.
And the investigation as a whole reportedly saw a whopping 128 suspects – some involved in football, others of the criminal fraternity – come into the authorities’ crosshairs.
The charges levied against those involved range from gambling and match fixing through to bribery and the illegal opening of casinos in China or its associate nations and territories.
So far, none of the players involved in the investigation, or any club representatives, have come forward to break their silence on the charges.
However, sources close to Son have claimed that the 32-year-old vehemently denies all of the charges brought against him from his time playing for Chinese club Shandong Taishan.
And his current club, South Korean K-League outfit Suwon FC, have vowed to continue playing the midfielder, claiming that the ban ‘doesn’t apply to us’.
“He vehemently denied bribery charges when he signed with us and I respect that,” said Suwon’s sporting director, Choi Soon-ho.
Lack of Integrity
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that Chinese football has been dragged through the mud in recent years.
In fact, as recently as March a former president of the Chinese Football Association was jailed for life for accepting bribes on a major scale.
Chen Xuyuan pleaded guilty to accepting bribes worth nearly £9 million during his time in office. In exchange for the money, he was found to have arranged special sporting events and handed project contracts to those that had lobbied directly to him.
Former president of the Chinese Football Association (CFA), Chen Xuyuan, has been sentenced to life in prison for bribery.
He’s pleaded guilty to taking bribes worth a total of 81 million yuan (£8.9m).#BBCFootball
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) March 26, 2024
Also in August of this year, two other high-ranking officials within the CFA were sentenced to seven and eleven years in prison respectively for corruption charges of their own.
Lie Tie, who turned out 34 times for Everton during his playing days, admitted to bribing CFA chiefs in order to offer him the job as Chinese national team manager.
The former midfielder was also found guilty of match fixing during his time as head coach of Chinese sides Hebei China Fortune and Wuhan Zall. In February 2024, he was sentenced to life in prison.
“In order to achieve good performance, I resorted to influencing referees, bribing opposing players and coaches, sometimes through clubs dealing with other club,” he sensationally admitted in court.
China, who finished second in the 2024 Olympics medal table and top of the standings at the Paralympics, continues to fail in its bid to become an international football super-power – not aided, of course, by the scale of the corruption holding the sport back in the country.
The Chinese Super League, which once attracted the likes of with the lure of huge contracts, has crumbled since its heyday in the 2010s. A handful of clubs have gone bankrupt and no longer exist, while a salary cap was introduced in 2020 to prevent the competition from becoming extinct.
The men’s national team is currently ranked at a lowly 87 in FIFA’s world rankings, below the likes of Luxembourg, Haiti and Curacao, and they have still only qualified for one edition of the World Cup in 2002.
To make matters worse, given the timing of the recent revelations, on Friday they were hammered 0-7 by their old nemesis Japan in a World Cup 2026 qualification game.