China launch their Asian Cup campaign on Saturday in the throes of a domestic anti-corruption drive that has triggered the downfall of numerous leading football figures including former coach Li Tie.
The ex-Everton midfielder permanently took over as China boss in January 2020, spearheading President Xi Jinping’s ambitions for the country to become a footballing superpower.
But four years on, that unlikely goal looks further away than ever and the 46-year-old Li is facing years in prison.
Days ahead of the Asian Cup in Qatar, Li appeared on national evening television and said he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to secure the top job and was involved in match-fixing.
His confession on Tuesday was part of an anti-graft documentary aired on state broadcaster CCTV.
China’s Asian Cup squad were required to watch, state media said.
CCTV regularly airs confessions by criminal suspects, including former officials, before they have appeared in court.
“I’m very sorry. I should have kept my head to the ground and followed the right path,” Li, dressed in dark clothes and sitting sombre-faced in a bare room, said in the footage.
“There were certain things that at the time were common practices in (Chinese) football,” added Li, who was fired in December 2021 after yet another World Cup qualifying campaign turned sour.
At least 10 senior leaders and executives of the Chinese Football Association (CFA) have also been brought down, including former president Chen Xuyuan, who also appeared in the programme.
Like in other sectors of Chinese society, the ruling Communist Party has launched periodic campaigns against graft in football.
There was a similar crackdown 15 years ago.
Hong Kong defeat
Football fan Xi has previously said he wanted China to host and one day even win the World Cup.
But they have still only reached the World Cup once, in 2002, when they went out in the group stage after losing all three games without scoring a goal.
China are currently ranked 79th in the FIFA rankings, sandwiched between El Salvador and Guinea
With no new stars emerging and still reliant on 32-year-old forward Wu Lei, expectations of going far at the Asian Cup under their Serbian coach Aleksandar Jankovic are low.
China were well beaten 3-0 at home by Son Heung-min’s South Korea in a World Cup qualifier in November.
Then they suffered humiliation in an Asian Cup warm-up match, beaten 2-1 by Hong Kong, the southern Chinese city of 7.5 million people.
It triggered another bout of hand-wringing among Chinese fans, who have long written off the national team as an embarrassment.
China are in a competitive Asian Cup group also containing hosts and holders Qatar, plus Lebanon and Tajikistan. The top two are guaranteed to reach the last 16.
The respected Oriental Sports Daily said that China reaching the quarter-finals, like they did in 2019, would be “a passable result” for a team that struggles to score goals.
In 2019 China began naturalising foreign players to help improve their limited squad.
The CFA has cooled on the policy but former Everton defender and England youth international Tyias Browning, 29, remains.
China have been preparing for three weeks in Abu Dhabi, during which they were also beaten 2-0 by Oman, but Jankovic attempted to strike an upbeat tone.
“When we land in Doha, no matter what you did in preparation games, we all start from zero,” Xinhua news agency on Thursday quoted him as saying.
He added: “We know that if we are at the peak of our level of performance, we can match up with the strongest teams in Asia.”
China begin their tournament against Tajikistan on Saturday.
