Yesterday, the Chinese Football Association released its second list of bans and club punishments, sparking widespread debate. The announcements have once again thrust Chinese football’s long-running match-fixing and gambling scandals back into the spotlight. Against this backdrop, a journalist claimed that Guangzhou Evergrande used to send “red envelopes” to CFA officials every Lunar New Year.
In the history of Chinese football, Guangzhou Evergrande was once synonymous with dominance, ambition, and deep pockets. The club delivered a remarkable haul of trophies and elevated the league’s profile. Yet as the sport undergoes another wave of disciplinary scrutiny, stories that were rarely discussed during Evergrande’s peak are resurfacing.
Journalist Chen Hua said Evergrande’s rise was no accident, arguing that the club maintained an exceptionally close relationship with the CFA. According to his claim, Evergrande would deliver Lunar New Year “red envelopes” worth hundreds of thousands of yuan to influential CFA officials—an alleged practice he says helped shape an unhealthy environment across the league.
Chen further suggested that once money entered the equation, the system became transactional: clubs provided financial benefits while officials allegedly returned the favor through policy decisions and broader “assistance.” In his telling, teams seeking championships or fighting relegation would feel pressure to “manage relationships” across multiple fronts—ranging from administrators to refereeing and other stakeholders—turning competition into a contest of influence as much as performance.
He also alleged that certain individuals pushed this dynamic to extremes, claiming fines and disciplinary actions could be weaponized arbitrarily. He pointed to one season in which CFA Super League fine revenue reportedly reached a record high, framing it as a symptom of a system where power and money were dangerously intertwined.
In the years that followed, Evergrande’s parent company plunged into a severe debt crisis, and the club’s financial foundation collapsed with it. In January 2025, Guangzhou FC officially announced its dissolution, marking a sobering end to one of the most iconic chapters in Chinese club football.
Chen Hua’s claims, however, have been met with sharp pushback from many fans. Critics questioned the timing of the allegations, asking why such issues were not raised when the club was at its height, and whether similar scrutiny is being applied evenly across the league rather than selectively after the fact.
