"The heart is in the right place, but not the right place."
The Qingdao soccer team has recently seen internal conflicts intensify, and players' dissatisfaction with the status of the team and their personal treatment has begun to spread. Previously there have been players in front of the media expressed concern about the team and personal future, and recently, due to the long period of unpaid wages, the backlog of emotions finally broke out. Yesterday, some of the players in the collective meeting strongly expressed that if the issue of unpaid wages can not be properly resolved, will refuse to participate in the upcoming Gusau tournament. One player said, "We players are very eager to go all out and do our best for Qingdao's relegation battle. But how can we play with peace of mind? Only by solving the problem of unpaid wages can our concerns be removed."
Nevertheless, the team's training went on as usual. Yesterday afternoon, Qingdao team in Kangqiao base and Henan Songshan Longmen team played a warm-up match, and finally with the foreign aid Alessandrini and Zhu Jianrong's goals, the two sides 2-2 draw. At present, the club is facing the biggest problem is to adjust the mentality of the players, after all, the players are most concerned about the problem than "when to get the salary owed".
Currently, Qingdao has only 2 wins, 1 draw and 11 losses in the first phase of the game, accumulating 7 points, ranking the bottom of the Chinese Super League. If the problem of unpaid wages is not alleviated by December 9, Qingdao's relegation situation is not optimistic.
Firstly, the team's ability to enter the tournament as planned is in doubt, and secondly, the team's morale is bound to be affected by the issue of salary arrears, which has demoralized the team, which is undoubtedly a blow to Qingdao, which needs to go all out and can't afford to lose in every game. Once they finish at the bottom of the table, Qingdao will face the challenge of either Zhejiang or Chengdu. Considering the strong desire of their rivals to reach the Super League and the low morale of their own team, Qingdao is afraid that the odds are stacked against them.
Eight months of salary arrears and relegation pressure
To add to Qingdao's woes, according to a reporter's investigation, when the club was taken over in 2015, then-sponsor Yellow Sea Group unknowingly took over the club, which was saddled with huge historical debts and litigation issues.
Until 2018, the former investors suddenly door-to-door debt collection, these debts and litigation issues were exposed, the club only understood the historical debt undertaken, but also became a historical burden that restricts the development of the club. On the one hand, the funds are delayed, on the other hand, the club investors door-to-door debt collection, the two comparisons, the club is facing the plight of the club can be seen, the club's business situation is difficult, and even affect the original listing plan of the Yellow Sea Group.
When the club is having operational problems, it seems logical that the players are owed wages. It is reported that as of now, the whole team is owed at least eight months' salary. Although salary arrears are nothing new, but for the players, more than eight months is indeed a bit long. In the first phase of the previous Chinese Super League match, Qingdao has seen at least two foreign aiders return to the team, and in the process of preparing for the second phase of the team, the team's local players as well as foreign aiders' mood fluctuations are also very large, some foreign aiders even expressed a strong will to return to the team, the players whether they can go all out to play has also become a question mark, and the daily life of the domestic players has also been greatly affected. Under such unfavorable factors, it is obviously difficult for the players to focus all their attention on the field, especially Qingdao will also face a serious relegation situation.
Qingdao is actively carrying out the task of competing for the key city of national soccer development, and the relevant parts have also initiated the mixed ownership reform of Qingdao soccer clubs. At present, there have been a number of Chinese Super League and Chinese First League clubs that have completed the reform of diversification and mixed ownership, but the equity reform program still encounters a lot of difficulties and problems in the process of promoting the reform of equity, and in such a context, the whole team of the club is quite worried about its own prospects.
A $200 million funding gap
After the team barely survived relegation into the 2021 season, the problem of financial shortfalls has become more and more prominent. Only Tsingtao Brewery is left with seven previously signed sponsors for this season, with the sponsorships of Qingdao Agricultural and Commercial Bank and Qingdao Guoxin still outstanding. Qingdao Unicom's sponsorship amount is only one-third of what was previously signed, with 200 million RMB yet to be realized.
Although the club difficult to complete the relevant part of the "stable super super" task, but since the end of 2020, the club investor Huanghai Group is still facing difficulties in business operations.
During Qingdao's two seasons in the Chinese Super League, which coincided with the normalization of the epidemic, the league adopted the match system, eliminating home and away matches and leaving the club with no income from business operations, and the impact of this was undoubtedly huge.
This season, although Qingdao Haifa Group injected funds in June to solve the team's immediate needs, the 30 million yuan injection is far from enough to sustain a Chinese Super League club. In the words of one of the players, "No one is coordinating sponsorships, and many of the previous promises have not been fulfilled, so we have been struggling to make ends meet. After all, our players, team building, including the women's soccer team, all require huge expenditures. Looking at Qingdao's corporate sponsorships over the past three seasons, there are still more than 200 million RMB unfulfilled."
