Recently, Inter Milan club president Zhang Kangyang posted a message on social media celebrating his team's Coppa Italia win and looking ahead to the future, "We are finally holding this trophy high again, but this is just the beginning." President Zhang's words resonated with a number of former Suning players, including national soccer captain Wu Xi, who retweeted the message on social media with a text about their salary demands, speaking out publicly to Suning FC.
Suning Group has not yet made a public response to the incident, given that the club has been dissolved and Zhang Kangyang is currently only the president of AC Milan FC. According to Oriental Sports Daily, in the settlement agreement signed between the players and Suning, Suning promised to pay back the outstanding salaries at a specific point in time last year. However, several months have passed since the deadline agreed upon in the agreement, and the players have yet to receive their paychecks.
Against this background, on March 10, the lawsuit between retired player Zhou Yun and Suning FC opened in Nanjing Yuhuatai District People's Court. At the same time, lawsuits against Suning FC, including Yang Jiawei, Nan Xiaoheng and assistant coach Cao Rui, also started in this court. Some of the players have filed lawsuits in other districts, and some of these cases are still waiting to be heard, while others have gone to a higher court.
With the Suning club staff collective payroll different, the players mostly in the name of individual payroll. For example, Zhou Yun, Ji Xiang and Gu Chao's contracts expired at the end of 2020, and after the team was disbanded, Zhou Yun chose to retire, while Ji Xiang and Gu Chao joined other teams as free agents. Players with contracts, such as captain Wu Xi, had to give up two months' salary in 2021 in order to continue playing, thus obtaining transfer certificates issued by their clubs and being able to join other teams.
Compared with the staff's arrears of salary and compensation totaling $3 million, the players' arrears of salary are even more enormous. What's more, some players had to advance more than $1 million on their own after they were injured because the club could not afford the medical and treatment costs, only to end up waiting for the blow of the team's dissolution.
