In China, Chen Yuyuan was sentenced this Tuesday March 26 by a court in Hubei province to life in prison for accepting bribes in the course of his duties. A sanction which comes as part of a major clean-up in Chinese football.
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From our correspondent in Beijing, Stéphane Lagarde
For the court of the central province of Hubei which sentenced him at first instance, Chen Xuyuan took advantage of his different statuses to illegally collect sums of money, the amounts of which were “ particularly huge “. The Hangshi court did the math: the defendant, now sentenced to life imprisonment, would have accepted bribes on 217 occasions in 13 years, for nearly 81 million yuan, or 10.5 million euros. These payments occurred when he was the director of SIPG (Shanghai International Port Group), the main operator of the port of Shanghai, between February 2011 and June 2019. These payments would then have exceeded 40 million yuan.
The corruption then continued when he took over as president of the Chinese Football Association, the court recalled: “ Chen Xuyuan agreed to requests from the chairman of developer China Fortune Land Development to provide event organization assistance, job recommendations and qualification approvals for the company’s soccer club. »
In total, the former president of the Chinese Football Federation received more than 30 million yuan (3.8 million euros) from 9 football clubs. Small arrangements between friends going as far as fixed matches which have plagued Chinese football in recent years and blocking the national team. The latter was unable to qualify for the last World Cup, the Chinese team is today in 79th place in the FIFA rankings.
On the stand, Chen Xuyuan admitted the facts and made excuses to football lovers: “ Fans can understand that Chinese teams play badly, but they cannot accept corruption. I apologize here publicly and ask their forgiveness. » To the prison sentence, the court added the forfeiture of the convicted person’s political rights and the confiscation of all his personal property.