Career
After playing for the Shandong Luneng youth team Gao Yao would move up to the senior team in 1998 to start his professional football career where in his debut season he would play in 3 league games. By the 2007 league season Gao Yao had, however dropped out of the first team and he saw his playing time limited when Liu Jindong emerged as Ljubiša Tumbaković"s preferred option. After several further friendlies in preparation for the 2002 Fédération internationale de football association World Cup Gao Yao was the surprise inclusions in the squad despite never playing in any competitive games.
The Chinese head coach Bora Milutinović stated that he wanted a versatile player who was also good a man marker, however during the tournament he did not play in any of the games at the tournament when China were knocked out in the group stages.
After the tournament he was not called up in China"s next squad and has not been capped since the end of 2002.