Source: Henan Daily client reporter Chen Chen Huang Daixin / text Sun Qian / graphics
As the only Chinese Super League team in Henan Province, Jianye will fight for the new season under what new name?On February 20, this question has been answered - Henan Songshan Longmen.
A professional soccer club is first of all a company. "Henan Jianye Football Club Co., Ltd. has officially changed its name to Henan Songshan Longmen Football Club Co., Ltd. which means that the Henan Jianye team we often talk about will become Henan Songshan Longmen team. The new name of the team retains the banner of Henan soccer, which is still the spiritual totem of all Henan fans and the reality carrier of Henan professional soccer.
Songshan Mountain and Longmen Grottoes are outstanding representatives of Henan's history and culture. Naming the team in this way fully represents Henan and is also in line with the CFA's requirements for non-corporate club names. The combination of Songshan and Longmen, at the same time reflects the club's equity changes behind the name change. The announcement on the Jianye club's official website says that the name change was agreed upon through friendly consultation among the Zhengzhou Municipal People's Government, Luoyang Municipal People's Government, and Jianye Group, and reported to the Henan Provincial People's Government for approval. The new club in the future will be a tripartite joint support with shared rights and obligations. According to Henan Business News, the new team's shareholding structure of "433", the capital of Zhengzhou accounted for 40%, Luoyang accounted for 30%, Jianye accounted for 30%.
Why the de-corporatization of club names? Since the start of the professional league in Chinese soccer, clubs have often changed their names at the top of the city. Along with changes in the major shareholders of the team, the team name often changes as well. Frequent changes in team names are not only detrimental to the heritage of the club's culture, making it difficult to build a century-old club like those in developed soccer countries, but also making a soccer club more of an appendage of its parent company, which is not conducive to its independent and long-term sustainable development.
After the de-corporatization of club names, some of the arguments that the Chinese Super League has turned into the All-China Games can be said to be unjustified. The sense of belonging brought about by a club's name reflecting its regional characteristics is not contradictory to the internationalization of the team. Liverpool has won the Premier League and Champions League many times and has gained a lot of fans around the world, while Roma, although its record is not top-notch, still has a lot of fans outside of Italy. These are all representatives of city names as team names, and just because they are foreign names doesn't mean that they are foreign, so we can't have double standards and treat them differently if they are used as domestic names for Chinese Super League teams. On the contrary, team names like "Bayer 04 Leverkusen", which contain the names of major shareholders, are an absolute minority in the mainstream European leagues and are products of a specific historical period.
Along with the optimization of the club's shareholding structure and the change of name, the biggest impact on the fans who have been supporting the team for a long time is the upcoming implementation of the dual-city, dual-home stadium rotation system. Since Henan Jianye's home stadium has been stabilized at Zhengzhou Navigation Stadium, "Navigation Stadium" has gradually become a synonym for Jianye. As a symbol of a professional soccer club, the home stadium is often deeply tied to the team, regardless of whether the stadium is owned by the club or not. It is not only a spiritual symbol, but also the core of the club's surrounding commercial business. In European countries where soccer is highly professionalized, stadiums not only have turf and stands, but often team exhibition halls as well as souvenir stores, theme bars and hotels.
Dual home stadiums as a norm are not rare in the world of soccer. Spanning two cities, first of all, certainly provides convenience for Luoyang fans to watch the game live, but also can radiate the neighboring cities.
Since it is a team from all over Henan Province, it is interesting to try to make the rain fall evenly. Home games are scattered to different cities, how to change the portion into incremental, which is not only about the experience of the fans, but also about the club's future business development, about the long-term survival and development of the team, need to think about it.
