Top soccer official may face death sentence
A top mainland sports official caught in a soccer crackdown could receive the death penalty if convicted of match-fixing and taking bribes, local media reported.
China Football Association (CFA) deputy chairman Nan Yong (pictured), 47, also the director of the General Administration of Sport's soccer centre, was arrested in late February during an investigation into rampant underground gambling in domestic soccer matches.
'The case had originally been scheduled to be heard early this month. But now it will be held a bit later, though I've received no statements with regard to the trial date,' a relative of another detained suspect was quoted by the Chengdu Economic Daily as saying.
'Everything has been prepared. I guess the court is due to open this month.'
The report said that along with Nan, other arrested officials with the CFA would probably stand trial in Shenyang, the capital of the northeastern province of Liaoning .
In late March, Wei Di, the newly appointed head of the CFA, reportedly said that the Ministry of Public Security had finished its investigations into suspects, including Nan, and the cases were heading to court.
On the mainland, that usually means the authorities have enough concrete evidence to pass the cases to the procuratorate.
Neither the police nor the prosecutors have talked about details of the case or the amount of money involved, but the paper said Nan could face capital punishment if he is prosecuted as a government official.
Ong Yew-kim, a Hong Kong-based China Law expert, yesterday pointed out the difference between Nan standing trial as an official of the country or as a staff member of a non-governmental - at least nominally - sports association.
According to the mainland's Criminal Law, a government official could be subject to the death penalty upon conviction of corruption involving more than 100,000 yuan (HK$114,000) with extreme circumstances, while those who worked for public sectors of non-governmental organisations face a maximum imprisonment of five years for the same crime.
'I believe that Nan perhaps will be given jail of 10 or so years, especially when the Supreme People's Court has tightened its punishment in recent years,' Ong said.
'The court is unlikely to give Nan the death penalty, as long as he did not take an astronomical sum in bribes, and the circumstances are not particularly wicked.'
The country's top leaders decided to push ahead with the development of soccer in the aftermath of the country's fruitful achievement at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
President Hu Jintao, Vice-President Xi Jinping and state councillor Liu Yandong vowed to crack down on soccer-related corruption, including match-fixing, underground gambling and bribing of referees, on several occasions since mid-October.
