Time has passed.
At this moment, China's soccer is undergoing a change, which is not only the predicament of the former Chinese Super League dominant Guangzhou team, but also the current situation of the entire national football team.
With the loss of wealth, the mainstay of the AFC Champions League returned to the team, the championship team was relegated to the relegation team, the pearl that once shone at the top of the national football team, where will it go from here?
Since 2021, when the Evergrande Group suffered a financial crisis, the team began to default on wages, Zheng Zhi, Huang Bowen, Zhang Linpeng and others returned to the team, and now Wei Shihao, Jiang Guangtai, Yan Dinghao, Yang Liyu and other internationals have unexpectedly stayed behind, the situation of the Guangzhou team has left the outside world perplexed. Can the former stock reform still salvage the situation? What is the current situation of the Salon?
I. Medicine and stone have no cure, but perseverance has not diminished
The Guangzhou team has been in massive wage arrears since last September after Evergrande Group's financial chain broke.
Not only foreign aiders, foreign coaches and naturalized players have returned to the team, but also the domestic main players have left. At that time, the team was looking forward to Salon's share reform to be carried out as soon as possible under the coordination of the relevant departments, and Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group became the new owner of Guangzhou soccer.
It is reported that Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group has expressed great sincerity in taking over Guangzhou soccer. A hand of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group personally attended the share reform meeting and proposed to invest 400 million per year to hold the salon and take over the Guangzhou soccer together with other two state-owned enterprises, but it was rejected by Evergrande. Evergrande thinks that Guangzhou Pharmaceutical's annual investment of 400 million can only account for about 20% of the shares at most, and Evergrande must still be the absolute controlling shareholder of Salon.
Subsequently, Guangzhou Pharmaceuticals said it could invest 800 million to become the majority shareholder of the Guangzhou team, allowing Evergrande to maintain a small stake, but Guangzhou Pharmaceuticals to take over the salon at the same time, to completely take over the team's use of the new base in Panyu and the right to operate. Ultimately, this proposal was also rejected by Evergrande.
Evergrande's persistence eventually prevented Guangzhou Pharmaceutical from withdrawing. This year, Evergrande Group has customized a policy of 15 million annual operating expenses and 600,000 top team salaries for Guangzhou Football Salon, which can be interpreted as Evergrande has rejected all share reforms.
As of today, the Guangzhou team is still in a state of serious salary arrears. Players, coaches and staff are still unable to get their salaries despite a significant pay cut. Everyone can only get the basic living expenses every month. In order to the normal operation of the team, the salon has to work on cash flow. Renting salon bases for the whole community, players and staff live streaming with goods, and even doing student hosting affairs. Anyway, as long as the money can be given immediately, the salon can talk about any affairs.
II. The Departed and the Left Behind
There is no doubt that the survival environment of Guangzhou soccer salon is very difficult, the group can no longer transfuse blood for the salon, all need to be self-sufficient.
So why did Wei Shihao, Yang Liyu, Yan Dinghao and Jiang Guangtai ultimately choose to stay with Guangzhou?
Wei Shihao (1988-), Chinese footballer
It is understood that Evergrande was initially willing to allow all first team players to return to the team on a free-agent basis, but asked the players to voluntarily give up their salary arrears. Most of the players previously contracted to earn more than $7 million a year after tax, with many earning more than $10 million a year, and their return could significantly reduce the salon's operating costs.
The naturalized and domestic players who are currently returning to the team are leaving in this manner.
At the beginning of this year, the Evergrande side of the vision is to let the players of the football school to play in the Chinese Super League, let go of all the previous first-team high-paid players, the team's performance is no longer the primary goal of the salon, alive than any other important.
However, the coaching team believes that relegation is highly likely if all play in the Super League with young players from the soccer academy. If the team is directly relegated to the Central League, the value of the salon will be greatly reduced and attention will be lost.
After many consultations, Evergrande senior management decided to leave some of the core players, the new season with a combination of old with new to fight in the Chinese Super League.
So which players are actually going to stay? It's more of a two-way street.
If the players can find a suitable home and get a satisfactory contract, they are willing to give up their salary arrears and give up the remaining high salary contract in Guangzhou team. Some of the players who can't find their next home, or the contract offered by the new team is much lower than the original contract of the Guangzhou team, they prefer to negotiate with Sharon to settle the issue of unpaid wages and continue to stay in the Guangzhou team.
Wei Shihao, Yang Liyu, Yan Dinghao, Wu Shaocong and other players have signed a money repayment agreement with Evergrande, and all the owed wages will be fully repaid in 1-3 years.
While their annual salary for the new season isn't as much as it was previously, it won't be much less.
The reason why the remaining players believe that Evergrande can deal with the financial problems in one or two years is that the Evergrande Group may be reorganized in the event of the failure of Salon's share reform. If the parent company once the reorganization is successful, after that it is very likely to be controlled by state-owned enterprises, then the team's unpaid wages will be solved.
Of course, this can only be said to be a "pie blueprint", Evergrande's future will be how, no one can say.
In addition, not all players can stay if they want to. For example, Zhang Xiuwei and Li Xuepeng, is the Evergrande senior management named not demand for players, even if the coaching staff hope to keep them, but also failed to come true, and ultimately no football.
III. Zheng Zhi turns teacher
Last season, Zheng Zhi, as the executive manager of the Guangzhou team, in the case of salary arrears in the salon, the side as a player, the side as a coach, one person playing two roles, shouldering the heavy responsibility of leading the team to complete the final group of competition for the championship.
Under extremely difficult circumstances, Zheng Zhi led the team to a third place finish and qualification for the AFC Champions League, much to the delight of Guangzhou fans. The veteran captain was undoubtedly the soul of the team, and now the 12-year team legend will be saying goodbye to the team.
It is understood that Zheng Zhi will not leave Guangzhou and will continue to work in Yangcheng. His new position is the head coach of the Guangzhou Academy of Physical Education and Football, with the official establishment of the university undergraduate college.
In other words, Zheng Zhi's status is the same as Su Bingtian's teaching at Jinan University, where he is required to lead the team at the soccer academy while giving classes to students.
Regarding Zheng Zhi, the campus supports him on the one hand to get a professional coaching certificate when he is coaching, and at the same time, if the national team has the need to draft as an assistant coach, it will also release people to fully support the national football team.
