"I'm very sorry. I should have kept my head to the ground and followed the right path," he said. "There were certain things that at the time were common practices in football."
Li confessed earlier this year to fixing matches, accepting bribes, and offering bribes to get the top coaching job. The court said that this happened from 2015, when he was an assistant coach at the Hebei China Fortune Club, until 2021, when he quit as the national coach.
The case shows how President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption crackdown has cut through sport, banking and the military. Earlier this week, three former officials from the Chinese Football Association (CFA) were also handed jail sentences for bribery.
Li, who was the national team's head coach from January 2020 to December 2021, pleaded guilty in March to taking over $16 million in bribes. In exchange for the bribes, Li would select certain individuals for the national team and help football clubs win competitions.
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