Former senior soccer officials under investigation

The battle against corruption in Chinese soccer continues with former Chinese Football Association vice-president Yu Hongchen, who is currently the president of the Chinese Athletics Association, placed under investigation for suspected violations of discipline and law, China's top anti-graft watchdog said on Wednesday.

On the same day, Dong Zheng, former general manager of the Chinese Super League, was also placed under investigation for the same suspected violations.

The two senior officials are being investigated by a disciplinary inspection and supervision team from the General Administration of Sport of China, which was sent by the Communist Party of China Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Commission of Supervision. The Hubei provincial commission of supervision is also involved.

A number of current and former senior officials in Chinese soccer are being investigated, starting with former Chinese men's soccer team head coach Li Tie in November.

In January, Chen Yongliang, the CFA's executive deputy secretary-general, and Liu Yi, the CFA's former secretary-general, were placed under investigation, followed by the investigation of CFA president Chen Xuyuan just a month later.

Last week, Huang Song, head of the CFA's competition management department, and Wang Xiaoping, director of the CFA's disciplinary commission, were placed under investigation. No details of these investigations have been released.

The latest targets, Yu and Dong, have become trending news on Chinese social media.

The hashtag "Yu Hongchen under investigation" had been viewed over 1.5 million times in just 30 minutes on microblogging platform Sina Weibo. Many netizens expressed their surprise at Yu's investigation as he had left the sport years earlier.

Yu was involved in the making of a Chinese soccer training guideline in 1986.

In 2010, Yu became chairman of the Chinese Super League. Two years later, he became the CFA vice-president.

In 2017, Yu left Chinese soccer and became the head of the Chinese Athletics Association.

On Monday, an impromptu inspection of the Leading Party Members Group of the General Administration of Sport was announced on the list of the first round of routine disciplinary inspections of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Li Xi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the inspection leadership group, said the inspections will further identify corruption and deep-seated institutional problems in sports, especially soccer, in order to provide a strong guarantee for building China into a leading sporting nation.