A prominent former soccer boss and a referees director were among 21 handed jail terms for bribery and match-fixing in China on Saturday as part of a massive anti-graft drive aimed at cleaning up the corruption-blighted local game. Yang Yimin, a former deputy-chief of the Chinese Football Association, was sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison by a Tieling court in China's north-eastern Liaoning province, and ordered to pay a 200,000 yuan ($32,000) fine, state media reported.
Yang, one of the highest-ranking officials to be swept up in the probe launched over two years ago, had taken bribes totalling 1.25 million yuan on 40 different occasions from domestic clubs and individuals, Xinhua news agency said. Yang would not appeal the sentence, the agency quoted Yang's attorney Wang Shujing as saying.
"The punishment isn't harsh," Wang said. "Yang took bribes as a government official and the harshest punishment for taking bribes as a public servant could be the death penalty." The court also sentenced the CFA's former referees director Zhang Jianqiang to 12 years in jail, with a fine of 250,000 yuan. Zhang, in his capacity as referees director and in other prominent roles in women's and amateur soccer, had taken bribes from a number of clubs in the top-flight domestic competition, the Chinese Super League, including Shandong Luneng and Shanghai Shenhua.
He had taken money from Shenhua to help them win the 2003 league title, Xinhua said. He also did not intend to appeal. The Tieling court also read out trial verdicts and sentences to another 19 people, including Du Yunqi, former president of Super League club Qingdao, who received a seven-year sentence. Soccer fans set off fireworks outside the court to celebrate the rulings, Xinhua said.
Verdicts for another 18 defendants were expected to be announced later on Saturday. Chinese soccer has been dogged by match-fixing scandals for years, which along with violence on and off the pitch has turned fans away from the domestic game in droves. Two of the most prominent people caught in the anti-corruption blitz, former CFA heads Nan Yong and Xie Yalong, are yet to go on trial.
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