Football corruption trials

Discussion in 'China' started by greenlion, Dec 19, 2011.

  1. greenlion

    greenlion Member

    Apr 22, 2004
    CHINA
    Club:
    Beijing Guoan
    Nat'l Team:
    China PR
    The trial of football corruption scandal starts today, looks like Shandong's 1999 League & Cup champions, 2006 League chanpions and Shanghai's 2003 League Champions all linked to match-fixing :eek:

     
  2. greenlion

    greenlion Member

    Apr 22, 2004
    CHINA
    Club:
    Beijing Guoan
    Nat'l Team:
    China PR
    http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2011-12/19/c_131315444.htm

    China opens trials on soccer corruption scandals

    English.news.cn 2011-12-19 18:03:37

    TIELING, Liaoning Province, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- A former Chinese soccer official and a club official who were arrested on bribe-taking and match-fixing charges stood trial Monday morning at a local court in northeast China, said a statement released by the Supreme People's Court.

    Zhang Jianqiang, ex-director of the Chinese Football Association (CFA) referee committee, was accused of taking 2.38 million yuan (376,000 U.S. dollars) in bribes from eight soccer clubs and two local football administrative centers between April 1997 and October 2009. In return, he chose referees or asked referees to throw favor to one side or the other, according to the Tieling municipal procuratorate.

    It also accused Zhang of asking Lu Jun, the country's "golden whistle" who officiated at 2002 World Cup, to favor the Shanghai Shenhua team in its Nov 9, 2003 match and of accepting the club's 700,000 yuan (110,585 U.S. dollars) in bribes, and he later split the money with Lu.

    The procuratorate said that after Zhang's case had been discovered, he returned 2.6 million yuan.

    Li Zhimin, former board of directors of Shaaxi Guoli soccer club, was accused of accepting 2.5 million yuan bribery from Sichuan Guancheng club and Shanghai Shenhua club and helping their teams to maintain their league positions or win championships, the procuratorate said. Li returned all the illicit money.

    The procuratorate regarded that Zhang's deeds have constituted the crime of bribery and non-state staff bribery; Li's practice has committed the crime of non-state staff bribery.

    The court said it would not announce the verdict immediately. Under China's law, taking bribes as state staff face much tougher penalties compared with those who are not civil servants. Officials taking bribes could be sentenced to death with most serious offences, while the heaviest punishment to non-state staff involving bribery is five years plus set jail terms.

    Zhang and Li are just two of dozens of defendants involved in corruption and match fixing scandals to stand trial this week at the Intermediate People's Court of Tieling City in Liaoning.

    A notice posted outside Tieling Intermediate People's Court last week said that former general manager of Shaanxi soccer club Wang Po, and ex-deputy director of the Chinese Football Administrative Center Yang Yiming, would be put on trial this Tuesday and Wednesday.

    Several top referees, including Lu Jun, will stand trial at the Intermediate People's Court of Dandong, a border city in Liaoning.

    However, the "bigger fish" involved in corruption scandals, former CFA vice-president Nan Yong and his predecessor Xie Yalong, are not on the defendants list at this round of trial sessions.

    China's professional soccer leagues have been plagued with allegations of gambling, match fixing and corrupt referees for years. In order to clean up the game, a nationwide crackdown on gambling and match fixing was launched in March 2009, as a high-profile committee was set up by 12 ministry-level bodies.

    Since then, a batch of officials, referees and players have been detained for their involvement in corruption and match fixing.
     
  3. ntg.

    ntg. Moderator
    Staff Member

    May 9, 2007
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    these two fcukers seem to never get any punishment.
     
  4. YenSter

    YenSter Member

    Apr 10, 2007
    London
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Hay everyone I'm updating some of the pages in Wiki about the CSL, with these corruption scandals finally coming to trail since 2010 they're a few questions which I need answering:

    1) Does Shenhua's 2003 title still stand? if not, what if any punishment will they recieve

    2) Does Shandong's 1999, 2006 League & 1999 Cup still stand? if not, what if any punishment will they recieve

    3) Someone at Wiki wrote this about Tianjin Teda "Evidence recently suggested that Tianjin had paid some officers and referees of China Football Association bribes (12 million Yuans) to avoid degrading to the lower level league." Is this story true? From my reading of these corruption scandals I haven't found any evidence of this
     
  5. greenlion

    greenlion Member

    Apr 22, 2004
    CHINA
    Club:
    Beijing Guoan
    Nat'l Team:
    China PR
    On the first trail of yesterday, four Current CSL clubs involved in the case, they are Shandong Luneng, Shanghai Shenhua, Jiangsu Sainty and Qingdao Jonoon, the CFA sid the punishiment to these clubs will be discussed after the court to identify whether the bribe is a enterprise beheviour or not.

    Basically in Chinese forums, sources or rumors indicate that Shandong Luneng is most likely to be relegated to Division 1, and their 1999 League & Cup champions, 2006 League & Cup Champions will be take back, while Shanhai Shenhua will not recieve further punishment as the Current Shanhua club is actually a reshuffle club by Shanghai Shenhua and Shanghai United in 2007.

    the Inte Shanghai 1-2 Tianjin Teda game in 2007 related to gambling guide by former CFA Vice-President Nan Yong, Former manager of Tianjin Teda Yang Yifeng and some Inter Shanghai players includes Shen Si and Qi Hong, however the Tianjin Tead club is not a subject of crime so there will be no further punishment towards Tianjin Teda
     
  6. greenlion

    greenlion Member

    Apr 22, 2004
    CHINA
    Club:
    Beijing Guoan
    Nat'l Team:
    China PR
    6 current CSL clubs and 1 C-League 1 club involves after day 2 of the trail

    Soccer corruption trials kick off
    Updated: 2011-12-20 08:08
    By Tang Yue and Liu Ce (China Daily)


    TIELING, Liaoning / BEIJING - Soccer fans braved temperatures of -15 C outside a local court in the northeast city of Tieling as the long-awaited trials for former Chinese soccer officials started here on Monday morning.

    More than two years after the nationwide clampdown on gambling and match-fixing began in late 2009, Zhang Jianqiang, former director of the Chinese Football Association's (CFA) referee committee and former women's soccer chief, became the first defendant in the Intermediate People's Court of Tieling.

    The hearing was open to some officials from the CFA, fans and reporters from four State media. Tens of millions more watched on TV as State broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) carried part of the trial live.
    Zhang, arrested in March 2010, was facing charges of bribe-taking. The bribery allegations in 13 cases amount to 2.73 million yuan ($430,000).

    Zhang is alleged to have started taking bribes in 1997 when he received 400,000 yuan from the Shaanxi Guoli team and arranged for a referee to be in favor of the club in a critical match. Shaanxi won and got promoted to the second-division of the domestic league.

    The top-flight league's winners, Shandong Luneng and Shanghai Shenhua, also got involved. Shandong club allegedly gave Zhang 400,000 yuan after winning the domestic league and the CFA Cup in 2000 (note: Should be 1999) while Shanghai paid him 700,000 yuan in 2003 for the title match, which he is said to have split with the referee, Lu Jun.

    Zhang did not deny the charges.

    "No morals, no criterion, no check and supervision. It was the reality," said Zhang in an interview with CCTV before the trial.

    The verdict was not delivered in court on Monday and Zhang could face a sentence of up to 20 years if convicted, law experts said.

    Li Zhimin, a former member of the board of directors of Shaanxi Guoli soccer club, also stood trial on Monday. He was accused of accepting 2.5 million yuan in bribes from Sichuan Guancheng club and Shanghai Shenhua club and helping their teams to maintain their league positions or win championships, the procuratorate said.
    Li returned all the illicit money.

    Several other former high-ranking officials, including Yang Yimin, former vice-president of CFA, will also stand trial later this week. According to an earlier interview, Yang took at least $10,000 from the domestic club. He will face a charge of bribe-taking on Wednesday morning.

    Meanwhile, four top referees, including Lu Jun, a 2002 World Cup referee and once dubbed the country's "Golden Whistle", will face trial in Dandong, another city in Liaoning province.

    However, the date for the trial of the former vice-president of CFA, Nan Yong, and his predecessor Xie Yalong, has yet to be announced. Yang and Xie have also admitted their bribe-taking in interviews with CCTV.

    With the trials ongoing, the country's governing body for the sport released a statement to reiterate its determination to fight corruption.

    "Soccer corruption breached the country's law and tarnished the image of the sport as well as the healthy development of soccer in China, leading to a very bad impact on the game," said the statement released by CFA.

    "The fight against corruption is a long-time effort. On one hand we need to build a solid defense to prevent corruption. On the other hand, we should deepen the reform of Chinese soccer and improve the administrative system and the supervision mechanism."

    China's professional leagues have always been plagued with allegations of gambling and match-fixing which, coupled with the national side's poor performances, have long made the sport a source of disappointment for diehard fans.

    And seeing those responsible for the problems taken to court gave comfort and hope to the sport's enthusiasts in the cold morning air. Some fans even held placards reading "rebirth of Chinese soccer" and "Hopefully, the resurrection of Chinese soccer starts right here".

    "I've been addicted to soccer since the early 1990s but I haven't been watching recently. My heart is broken," said Dou Gang, 40, who was on a business trip in Tieling and went to the court on Monday morning.

    "The series of scandals really drove us mad and they are the disgrace of all Chinese," Dou told China Daily. "But the trial gives us some hope again, I hope this can be a turning point for Chinese soccer."

    China Daily

    Chinese football referee admits taking $256,000 in bribes
    December 20, 2011 IANS China | Dandong

    A Chinese football referee, standing trial at the Intermediate People's Court of Dandong in Liaoning Province, admitted on Tuesday to taking bribes of more than $256,000.

    Huang Junjie, charged with taking bribes as non-state staff, used to be one of the best-known football referees in China. He had more than a 20-year-long career and was certified as an international level referee in 1998.

    He was selected as one of the three nominees for the best referee of the year in 2009 although a series of controversial rulings were made by him during the season.

    From 2005 to 2009, Huang accepted bribes 20 times from six Chinese clubs and he also took money to fix two international friendlies. He received a total of 1.48 million yuan and $100,000 (Hong Kong) in bribes, Xinhua reported.

    Apart from taking bribes to officiate in favour of clubs, Huang also took money from his colleague Zhou Weixin and helped him with gambling.

    During an exhibition match between English Premier League giants Manchester United and China's Shenzhen FC in Macao Stadium in 2007, Huang met Zhou's request to let Shenzhen FC win toss-up for the kick-off and received $100,000 (Hong Kong) as a reward afterwards.

    In 2009, Huang helped Zhou win in gambling again during a friendly between China's Shanghai Shenhua and Australian side Sydney FC. And this time the reward was 100,000 yuan.

    Huang was taken away by the police in March 2010, and Zhou was also arrested at the same time.

    Huang and Zhou were both charged with taking bribes as non-state staff with Zhou facing an additional count of bribing civil servants.

    Like Huang, Zhou was often caught with controversial rulings and sometimes even wrong decisions.

    During a Chinese Super League match between Beijing Guoan and Shenyang Jinde on Oct 2, 2004, Zhou ruled a penalty kick in favour of Shenyang in the second half, which aroused furious protest from the players and coach of Beijing.

    The Beijing team refused to continue the match and left the pitch, out of rage and Zhou ruled the the match ended with Beijing losing.

    The Chinese Football Association (CFA) later slapped an eight-match ban on Zhou for his "mis-judgment" in the match, although many suspected Zhou made the mistake on purpose.

    Huang and Zhou are the first referees to face court following the police's two-year-long crackdown on football corruption in China.

    Lu Jun, the best known Chinese football referee who once officiated in World Cup and Olympic Games, will stand trial Wednesday.
     
  7. greenlion

    greenlion Member

    Apr 22, 2004
    CHINA
    Club:
    Beijing Guoan
    Nat'l Team:
    China PR
    Changchun Yatai's 2007 League Champions related to ref bribery

     
  8. YenSter

    YenSter Member

    Apr 10, 2007
    London
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    Thanks for the info, I was wondering why Shandong weren't rumoured with any big name transfers
     
  9. Angsa

    Angsa Member

    Aug 26, 2008
    Hong Kong
    Club:
    Everton FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_...7&sid=36187704&con_type=1&d_str=20120426&fc=7

    The Standard

    Former top footballers face graft trial

    Thursday, April 26, 2012

    China put four former international footballers on trial yesterday for fixing a domestic league match.

    Nan Yong, the former head of the Chinese Football Association, also went on trial for taking bribes, Xinhua news agency said, a day after similar proceedings opened against his predecessor Xie Yalong.

    The trials mark the culmination of a campaign to root out entrenched graft in the Chinese game that has ensnared dozens of CFA and club officials, referees, and players accused of match-fixing, gambling and other misdeeds.

    Exposed two years ago, the scandal has combined with the national squad's poor performance to repel Chinese fans, undermining the popularity of the domestic game in the world's most populous country.

    Xinhua said the players facing justice in a court in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang included two key performers on the Chinese national side that qualified for the 2002 World Cup finals, Qi Hong and Jiang Jin.

    The pair are accused of taking bribes to fix a 2003 domestic league game in which their team, Shanghai Guoji, lost 2-1 to Tianjin Teda, Xinhua said.

    The pair's former national teammates Shen Si and Li Ming are also charged with the offence.
     

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