The gold owner of the Wuhan Three Towns team, Shangwen Real Estate Company, announced on August 28 this year that it had divested and listed all the shares of the club at zero price.
Wuhan Sanzhen is the defending champion of the Chinese Super League. This season, the team's performance has gradually recovered after a sluggish start to the season. They are currently ranked fifth on the table, sharing points with Shanghai Shenhua and Zhejiang, who are third and fourth. Simply because of their record and poor ranking, they still have hopes of qualifying for the Asian competition next season. However, Wuhan's fans deserted the team together during the difficult period when the gold masters withdrew their capital.
In the 25th round of the Chinese Super League, Wuhan Three Town had their first home match day after the withdrawal of their gold owner. With Wei Shihao's second goal, the team easily beat the visiting Cangzhou Lions 2-0. Surprisingly, according to the post-match statistics, only 9002 fans entered the stadium to watch the game, which created the lowest attendance record for Wuhan Three Town this season, and was also the lowest attendance for a game in the Chinese Super League this round.
This season, Wuhan Three Town played 12 home matches before the 25th round with an average attendance of 17,687. The previous record low was 11,367 on August 27 against Nantong Zhiyun. The average attendance in the 25th round of the Chinese Super League was 21,216, and due to the "light bulb fixing incident", Shanghai Seaport only had 12,613 people attending the game, which was the lower attendance in this round. As you can see, Wuhan Three Town's attendance dropped, losing more than 20% of their fans compared to themselves and other Chinese Super League teams, and even compared to their previous record low attendance.
In contrast to the fans, the Wuhan Three Town club did not choose to lie flat as a result of the departure of the gold owner. Players can still continue to win, while the club released a well-produced investment PowerPoint presentation on the day the gold masters pulled out and detailed the club's philosophy, strengths, facilities and values in a bid to attract new investors.
Now look at the part of this PPT that introduces the fans, it's hard not to feel embarrassed.The PPT reads like this: "Fans in three towns, glory and common. Hubei and Wuhan have a deep foundation of fans, with the number of fans reaching 1.2 million+. Wuhan three towns fans characteristics:Young, energetic, loyal."
In addition to trying to attract investment, the club is also trying to save itself by selling foreign aid. on September 7, Wuhan Sanzhen sold 30-year-old central midfielder Stanchou to Saudi team Damac for 2.5 million euros. According to Sohu Sports reporter Pei Li, Stanchou's departure will also free up 20-30 million yuan of salary space for the club.
When the Shonven estate left, all of the club's debts were paid off. However, according to the Shonwen owner, the team's daily signing reimbursements had reached the seven-figure level, with an annual budget of $300 million. As a result, the transfer fees and saved salary budget left behind by Stanciu were only enough to cover the team's expenses for one month. Fortunately, the local government has not given up. According to Football Daily, the Wuhan Municipal Sports Bureau and the Football Association have sent a working group into the club, which will secure the team's upcoming AFC Champions League and Chinese Super League fixtures.
English League Network celebrity team Wrexham also experienced being abandoned by property developer owners and crooked owners who also tried to rip off the club's stadium, leaving the club with a £2.6 million debt. At the moment of crisis, it was Wrexham fans who organized the Fans Trust to keep the team and stadium, and it took 15 years to finally wait for today's wealthy owner to take over the club.
Compared to Wrexham's experience, the situation in Wuhan Three Towns was much better. Not only did the gold owners leave no debt behind, they also promised to provide the team with a training center for free. In the case of the Chinese Super League, we don't expect the fans' fund to save the team, but at least the fans can contribute to the valuable matchday revenue by buying tickets into the club. How can they run with the gold at this point in time? Is the team no longer capable of competing for titles because the gold masters are gone and the foreigners are gone? Many people often complain that Chinese clubs have no ability to make blood. How can clubs talk about blood creation if our fans are flying separately from such a disaster?
