China basketball coach Li Nan resigns after team’s disastrous showing at Fiba World Cup

China head coach Li Nan has resigned following his team’s disastrous campaign at the recent Fiba Basketball World Cup, where they failed to qualify for next year’s Olympics despite being hosts.

Li offered to step down from his position on Wednesday and his resignation will be subject to approval by the General Administration of Sport, the Chinese media reported on Wednesday.

The 44-year-old Li, a former national star player, was expected to resign after China finished a lowly 24th out of 32 teams in the basketball showpiece. Their poor results meant they have dashed their hopes of automatically qualifying for the Tokyo Games. China won just two games in the World Cup tournament – against the Ivory Coast and South Korea – but racked up losses against Poland, Nigeria and Venezuela.

The hosts finished behind Asian counterparts Iran in the 17-32 classification round, denting their hopes of qualifying for Tokyo. Team Red will now enter a 24-team repechage qualifier later this year.

Calls for Li’s resignation had been loud from fans who were embarrassed by the team’s performance in basketball’s biggest tournament after the Olympics. Li had not indicated that he would resign in a post-match press conference after their campaign ended with former NBA superstar, Yao Ming, chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association, “assuming all responsibilities” for the team’s poor run.

As a player, Li won eight national league titles with the Bayi Rockets. He also played in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, where China reached the last eight. Four years earlier in Athens, Li helped his team reach the Olympics quarter-finals as well.

After retiring as a player in 2009, Li became coach of the Bayi youth team before officially joining the China national team as an assistant to Deng Huade. He was promoted to coach in April 2017 before he was made head coach at this year’s World Cup.