The former deputy director of the Chinese Football Association (CFA) Yang Yimin will stand trial today for allegedly taking tens of millions of yuan in bribes, as the first round of Chinese soccer corruption trials enters its third day.

China's professional soccer leagues have been plagued with allegations of gambling, match-fixing and corrupt referees for years.

The police launched a nationwide crackdown in March 2009 to clean up corruption. Since then, a number of officials, referees and former players have been detained, including former CFA deputy director Nan Yong and his predecessor, Xie Yalong.

The long-awaited trials for soccer corruption started on Monday morning at the Intermediate People's Court of Tieling in Liaoning Province. More than 30 people, most of whom are former CFA and club officials, are involved. The date for the trial of Nan and Xie has yet to be announced.

A dozen or so soccer fans took a chartered bus to Tieling and waited outside the court early on Monday, holding banners reading, "May Chinese soccer rise from here."

Yang is the highest-ranking official to go on trial for his involvement in the soccer scandal.

News portal sina.com quoted an insider who had read the indictment against him as saying that Yang had taken bribes of cash and gifts worth more than 12 million yuan ($1.89 million) since he joined CFA in 1995.

The amount is a much higher figure than the alleged 2.7 million yuan in bribes accepted by Zhang Jianqiang, a former director of the CFA's referee committee, who was charged on Monday.

During the trial, the prosecutor accused Zhang of taking bribes from several clubs, including top clubs such as Shandong Luneng and Shanghai Shenhua.

In an interview with China Central Television, Xie admitted that he accepted 200,000 yuan in bribes to help Shandong Luneng win the Chinese Super League (CSL) in 2006.

Also facing trial this week at the Intermediate People's Court of Dandong, a border city in Liaoning, are several of the country's top referees, including Lu Jun, China's best known soccer referee, who had previously officiated fixtures in the World Cup and Summer Olympics.

The Oriental Morning Post quoted an anonymous source as saying that Lu, who will also go on trial today, once accepted $800,000 in bribes at an international match.

During yesterday's trial, Huang Junjie, a referee, admitted taking bribes of more than 1.5 million yuan. From 2005 to 2009, Huang accepted bribes on 20 occasions from six Chinese clubs and also took money to fix two international friendlies.

Apart from taking bribes to officiate in favor of clubs, Huang also took money from his colleague Zhou Weixin and helped him with gambling.

Zhang Ping, a professor with the Chinese People's Public Security University, told the Luzhong Morning Post that Nan and Xie may receive the death penalty as they were public servants.

In an online survey conducted by sina.com, about 71 percent of 6,000 web users said all the clubs involved in match-fixing should be relegated.

Over 15 percent of them said they did not think the punishment would be severe, while nearly 14 percent believed the matter should be dealt with cautiously.

The CFA told the Xinhua News Agency that clubs found guilty will be punished in accordance with regulations, but stopped short of saying they would be relegated.

Pan Caifu, a renowned soccer columnist, told the Global Times that the clubs are likely to be spared from being relegated.

The major cause of Chinese soccer's dismal state is rooted in corruption at all levels of the sport, from the selection of players to the highest level of administrators, according to Pan, who also expressed optimism in the future of the sport as long as authorities continue their crackdown.

Scott McIntyre, an Asian football observer based in Australia, echoed Pan's sentiments, saying judicial intervention is the only way to rectify the problems in China's soccer industry.

"We saw two of the troubled clubs in Guangzhou and Chengdu relegated from the CSL. In the past 12 months, things have been getting better. There are some new people running the CFA and trying to make a change," Mclntyre told the Global Times.

"A coach told me that he couldn't even tell which players were selected till the morning of the match, and some other teams made the rule that no players could use mobile phones in the dressing room before the match," he added.

China's men's soccer team came 72nd in the latest FIFA World Ranking, slightly higher than Haiti and Iraq.

Xu Tianran and Xinhua contributed to this story