In recent years, China's professional soccer league has fallen into the doldrums, a situation that is indisputable. Chen Xuyuan has been at the helm of the Football Association for more than three years, during which time 35 clubs have announced their withdrawal, including four top clubs such as Tianjin Tianhai, Jiangsu Suning, Chongqing Liangjiang Athletic and Wuhan Changjiang.
Each of the four clubs had their own reasons for dissolving. Suning and Chongqing clubs are in trouble due to debt problems, while Wuhan Changjiang decided to quit due to the owner's boredom with soccer. Tianjin Tianhai's situation is more complicated.
As we all know, Tianjin Quanjian, the predecessor of Tianjin Tianhai, used to be the "Golden Dollar Club" in the Chinese Super League. After the withdrawal of Quanjian Group, the Tianhai Club faced financial pressure, but not all the main players left the team. Despite the difficult situation in the 2019 season, Tianhai successfully completed the relegation task under the leadership of Li Weifeng.
However, in the 2020 season, Tianhai FC was delayed due to access qualification issues and eventually announced its dissolution before the start of the league. In fact, Tianhai did not need to be disbanded and was fully qualified to stay in the Chinese Super League. However, a Chinese club colluded with Liu Yi, the secretary general of the Football Association, to "eliminate" Tianjin Tianhai through improper means.
It is reported that Liu Yi, after accepting bribes from the club, utilized his authority to carry out a series of operations in the Football Association. First, in the approval process of the acquisition of Tianhai Club by Vantone Group, he deliberately denied Vantone Group's eligibility to acquire the club.
Subsequently, when approving the qualifications for access to the clubs in the Chinese Super League, he failed to pass the access qualification of Tianhai FC due to the financial problems of Tianhai FC, which led to the Vantone Group losing confidence in acquiring Tianhai. Eventually, under pressure, Tianhai FC officially announced in May 2020 that it was dissolved.
Chinese First Division clubs have benefited as a result. The club was promoted to the Chinese Super League as a replacement after the dissolution of Tianhai FC, and performed spectacularly that season. It is worth mentioning that the general manager of the club was once an employee of Tianjin Quanjian, and after arriving at Tianhai, he went on a rampage to poach Tianhai players, one of whom was a former national soccer goalkeeper. Due to the involvement of Li Tie case, both were taken away by the relevant departments for investigation.
Liu Yi also gained a lot of benefits as a result. He helped this Chinese club succeed in reaching the Chinese Super League by operating foreign aid transfers and transferring welfare payments into his own account and that of another player's agent.
In addition, Liu Yi tried to extend his greedy hand to the national team. He worked with several player agents and earned a large amount of brokerage fees through the operation of non-blood naturalized players. However, the performance of these naturalized players in the national team was far inferior to that of the league, leading to the early exit of the national football team in last year's world qualifiers.
Through the above cases, it is not difficult to see that Liu Yi utilized his power in the Football Association to cause harm to many teams and earned himself a huge amount of "unknown" wealth. From this point of view, his harm to Chinese soccer is no less than that of Chen Xuyuan, and perhaps even more so, isn't it?
