"It's hard to be at ease when you're anxious to fight."
Players within Qingdao have already revealed their worries about the team and their personal future to the media. However, with the accumulation of pressure from long unpaid salaries, their emotions finally exploded. Yesterday morning, some of the players openly stated that they would refuse to participate in the upcoming Gusu tournament if the issue of unpaid wages was not properly resolved. The players said, "We players are eager to go all out and do our best for Qingdao's relegation battle. But nowadays, how can we play with peace of mind? Only by solving the problem of unpaid wages can we remove our worries."
Nevertheless, the team's daily training was not affected. Yesterday afternoon, Qingdao team played a warm-up match with Henan Songshan Longmen at Kangqiao Base, and ended in a 2-2 draw. At present, the club is facing the biggest problem is to adjust the mentality of the players, because the players are most concerned about the issue of "when can I get the arrears of wages".
At present, Qingdao team in the first stage of the game only achieved 2 wins, 1 draw and 11 losses, accumulated 7 points, ranked at the bottom of the Super League. If the problem of unpaid wages is not alleviated before December 9, Qingdao's relegation situation will be very serious.
First of all, it is doubtful that the team will be able to enter the tournament as planned. Secondly, the team's fighting spirit will be affected. The issue of salary arrears will lead to low morale of the whole team, which will be a blow to Qingdao, who needs to go all out and cannot afford to make mistakes in every game. Once they finish at the bottom of the table, Qingdao will face the challenge of Zhejiang or Chengdu. Considering the strong desire of the opponents and the low morale of the Qingdao team, Qingdao is afraid that the odds are against them.
Wages more than eight months in arrears, relegation pressure makes it difficult to concentrate
To add to Qingdao's woes, it was revealed that when the club was taken over in 2015, the Yellow Sea Group, who were the sponsors, took over the club without their knowledge as the original shareholders intentionally hid the huge historical debts and litigation issues.
It wasn't until 2018, when former investors pursued debts, that these debts and lawsuits came to light, and the club realized the historical debts it had taken on, which also became a historical burden that plagued the club's development. On the one hand, the funds were delayed, and on the other hand, the investors recovered the debts, the club faced a predictable predicament, and the business situation was struggling, even affecting the listing plan of the Yellow Sea Group.
When the club has operational problems, it seems logical that the players are owed wages. It is understood that, as of now, the entire team is owed at least eight months of wages. Although unpaid wages are nothing new, eight months is still a bit long for the players. In the previous stage of the Chinese Super League, Qingdao has seen at least two foreign aiders return to the team. In the process of preparing for the second phase, the mood fluctuations of the team's local players as well as foreign aiders were also very large, some foreign aiders even expressed a strong willingness to return to the team, and it became doubtful whether the players could go all out, and the daily lives of the domestic players were also greatly affected as a result. Under such unfavorable factors, it is obviously difficult for the players to focus all their energy on the field, especially Qingdao will also face a serious relegation situation.
Qingdao is actively carrying out activities to create a national key city for soccer development, and the relevant departments have initiated the process of mixed ownership reform of Qingdao's soccer clubs. At present, a number of Chinese Super League and Chinese First League clubs have completed the reform of diversification and mixed ownership, but the equity reform program is still facing considerable difficulties and problems in the process of promotion, and the clubs are worried about their own prospects.
The funding gap is upwards of $200 million
After the team struggled to complete the relegation task into the 2021 season, the problem of funding gap is 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 it was before, with 200 million RMB still to be realized.
Although the club has completed the task of "stabilizing and maintaining the super" issued by the relevant departments with great difficulty, since the end of 2020, the club's investor, the Yellow Sea Group, is still facing difficulties in business operation.
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, an impact that was undoubtedly huge.
This season, although Qingdao Haifa Group injected money to solve the team's immediate needs in June, the 30 million yuan sponsorship is far from enough to sustain a Chinese Super League club. A player said:
"Now there is no one to coordinate sponsorship matters, many of the previous promises have failed to materialize, we have indeed been struggling to support, after all, our players, team construction, including women's football, etc., all need huge expenditure. Throughout the three seasons Qingdao team's corporate sponsorship, so far the cumulative total of more than 200 million yuan has not been realized."
