The watchfulness of Jiangsu fans has in recent years been normalized into support for former Jiangsu players scattered throughout the region.
The spotlight looks like a blazing fire, and the scattering looks like stars in all directions.
With the dissolution of Suning, Xie Pengfei joined Wuhan Sanzhen, where he celebrated after scoring as if peering into the depths of the world with one eye. Xie Pengfei longs for clarity of self, yet who can see through the fog of Chinese soccer?
Did you regret quitting when you were faced with so many clubs that owed you wages?
"We don't owe that much, of course we regret it!"
On the eve of the 2022 season, the CFA made a major concession to the professional league's massive wage arrears problem by launching a "three-step repayment" program; regardless of the length of the wage arrears and whether or not an agreement has been reached with the players, clubs that still wanted to continue last year will be the first to enter the program, and the arrears will be gradually repaid.
The absence of wage arrears is no longer a mandatory condition for admission.
Last April, a reporter asked a former Suning manager who had returned to work for the group, "Do you regret quitting those clubs that owed you wages?"
He replied, "We don't owe that much, of course we regret it!"
It is rare to see a team disband after winning a championship. Management even rhetorically asked, "Would the outcome have been different if the media attention had been louder?"
Ultimately, he just repeated, "We don't owe much, selling players will plug the gap..." and "without realizing that those who came after us owed more..."
Apparently, the former Suning manager felt powerless, regretful and deeply resentful of Jiangsu's exit.
For the past two years, former Jiangsu team players and staff have been gathering in Nanjing every year after the season. Despite going their separate ways, the affection for each other remains strong.
"Give me a striker and I can beat Luneng!"
Prior to the implementation of the league policy for the 2020 season, R&F took the lead in proposing the abolition of promotion and relegation; a policy supported not only by the relegated teams, but also by powerhouse Suning.
Prior to entering the division that year, the team was already poorly run and many were mentally prepared for relegation.
Halfway through the first phase, news of the team's salary arrears and training strike came to light. At the time, insiders were given the signal that Suning did not want to continue to invest in soccer, but the team still held the belief that "good performance will make investors return to their hearts".
Driven by conviction, players with otherwise strained relationships, such as the two main players in the backcourt, put aside their personal grudges to encourage each other on the pitch and embrace each other in celebration after a win.
In 2020, before the second round of the match between Shanghai Hong Kong and Suning, Suning's chef secretly took photos of his training trip to Hong Kong in order to get into the opponent's mindset, which was caught by Arnautovic and led to an exchange of "punches and kicks" between the two sides.
This approach is certainly not good, but in a tough context, we can see everyone doing their best to contribute to the team.
After winning the championship, there was no prize money and no celebration banquet. Olaroyo, a coach who didn't want the whole team to feel left out, comforted many of the title-winning heroes by buying a dozen Apple phones out of his own pocket before leaving.
Under unfavorable circumstances, he led his team to win the Chinese Super League title and finished runner-up in the FA Cup with a scrappy team. It can be said that Suning's performance in the 2020 season was perfect. While people were looking forward to the team's performance in the 2021 season, this team was quickly disbanded!
Many were perplexed by the quick dissolution of Suning after winning the title, but on reflection, it seems to be related.
With many of the major contracts expiring before the Spring Festival of 2021, and no one even talking to them about renewing their contracts, a breakup was in the air.After the Spring Festival of 2021, Suning's investor, Mr. Zhang Dongbei, publicly stated that "it's time to cut", and everyone knew that Suning had given up on Jiangsu soccer altogether.
Regarding the reason for Suning's withdrawal of capital, Ma Dexing, a famous media person of Sports Weekly, once wrote: "Facing the current situation of Jiangsu soccer, the first thing capitalists think of is to escape. What the club and the parent company are doing now speaks volumes. Because of a 'timid' nature, coupled with a 'speculative' drive, it is obviously naïve to expect other owners to come forward to save professional clubs in Chinese soccer from the current turmoil."
In fact, Ma Dexing's words sum up Suning's motivation for investing in soccer very well - speculation!
At that time, Sun Tian did not make up its mind to let go of the club. Suning took the initiative to find the relevant departments to put pressure on the club, and eventually took over the club at what seemed like a relatively small cost at the time (Shuntian also left it to Suning because Sun Ke's 66 million transfer fee transfer formalities had not been handled).
After taking over the club, Suning had painted a grand blueprint for future development. However, in reality, Suning has its own little plan for investing in soccer.
Because Suning's e-commerce efforts came much later than JD.COM and Taobao's, and their marketing tactics were far inferior to each other's; when they saw JD.COM signing exclusive sponsorship contracts with the Chinese Super League and the CBA, and Alibaba joining Evergrande in sponsoring the Club World Cup, both companies gained a lot of traffic through professional sports.
These moves also inspired Suning; they sponsored Barcelona, accepted Sun Tian, accepted Inter Milan, and invested heavily in copyrights and e-sports. They also hope to broaden Suning's industrial chain by channeling the traffic brought by sports to their e-commerce platform.
Investing in soccer does bring a good diversion for Suning. However, Suning has been drying e-commerce with offline thinking for a long time, and their business philosophy and promotional model have not fully conquered consumers, resulting in Suning holding traffic, but unable to realize the cash. Moreover, a few years ago, Suning kept spending money almost every time it broadened a new area. They may have made plans to abandon Jiangsu soccer before investors thundered in.
Of course, if you do not get the league title, Suning is afraid that they will not offer such a high transfer price; if you do not get the league title, perhaps their exit will not cause so much concern. However, the championship raised the expectations of all parties on Jiangsu, and also raised Suning's appetite. After Jiangsu's dissolution, Ma Dexing revealed a detail: "In 2020, before Suning won the league title, the company contacted companies in Wuxi and Suzhou. At that time, there were many options, such as the club relocation, Suzhou Dongwu, Kunshan merger and so on. Wuxi Sports Bureau also wanted to take over, but Suning offered a price that sent Wuxi home for 10 billion yuan a year.
Shanghai, which entered the Chinese soccer world at the same time as Suning, spent 12 billion yuan to get a championship, spent billions to more than 10 billion yuan, and has not yet won the league title of Huaxia, Quanjian, Shenhua in the Greenland period; in contrast, Suning won the 6.3 billion yuan of the league title in five years, and was quite successful based on the results alone.
But even so, Suning has invested in Jiangsu soccer for five years and still left an amateurish impression on all sides.
In terms of signings, Brazilian foreigner Adriano had already flown to Nanjing; at that time, after getting a "positive" reply from the club, Suning coach Petrescu had already called Hotspur to talk to him about technical tactics. As a result, these two foreigners did not join Suning in the end.
As far as preparation is concerned, the first game of the Suning period, the AFC Champions League away flight to Vietnam, the team only got on the plane, did not bring the training ball this matter was stabbed by the players to the media.
In the first league game under Olaroyo, the debut was slated for No. 28 Yang Xiaotian, but Yang Jiawei was written as No. 27 on the list submitted by Li Jinyu, who at the time did not even go to Nanjing Olympic Stadium with the big team.
When Olaroyo renewed his contract with Suning, he added a clause that allowed for bonuses for finishing in the top four. At the time, Suning's trader W defaulted to tying fourth place in the league to qualification for the AFC Champions League.In '19, Olaroyo led his team to a fourth place finish but did not qualify for the AFC Champions League. When Olaroyo asked the club for money, Suning's trader said, "Fourth place can't play in the AFC Champions League."
Before Suning 2020 entered the division, W did two things: first, to save money, he fired the team's laundryman and asked the team's staff to launder practice and game gear for every player and coaching staff member.
Secondly, with the club in such financial difficulty, W still gave an 8 million contract extension to a player who didn't even make the division for medical reasons.
Previously, Suning ate buffet after training in Xuzhuang base, but at the beginning of the 21st, under the leadership of assistant coach Cao Rui, the team resumed training only issued boxed lunches, which need to be collected with a ticket; at the direction of W, did not renew the contract of auspicious, Zhou Yun, Gu Chao, not only endured a long period of arrears of wages, the club also did not prepare a boxed lunch for them.
