On the night of August 1, in the wee hours of Beijing time, heavy news came from the officials of the Central League as Zibo Cuju withdrew from the current round of matches for some reason, while Heilongjiang Bingcheng won comfortably by virtue of a 3-0 scoreline.
According to the latest reports, the reason behind Zibo Cuju's abandonment of the tournament is actually -
Their failure to meet the July 31 deadline for resolving salary arrears resulted in their registered players for the season being banned from playing from the following day.
The report mentioned that last year, the preparatory stage of the season, Zibo Cuju had proposed to the CFA to suspend the implementation of the "ban on the registration of new players" penalties, and put forward a solution to the arrears of wages repayment program, and commitment:
Failure to repay the outstanding amount on time will result in voluntary acceptance of the penalty imposed by the Football Association.
One of this penalties is that new players registered by the club during the transfer window at the beginning of the season will not be allowed to play until the end of the penalty period.
Despite the CFA agreeing to Zibo Cuju's request for a stay of execution, the club has subsequently introduced reinforcements on a large scale, with 18 players, including Fan Xiaodong and Sun Kai, officially announced as joining the team on May 14, and 16 players leaving the team on the same day.
Unfortunately, however, Zibo Cuju did not fulfill its promise on July 31, resulting in the penalty becoming official as of August 1. Those new players registered during the penalty period were therefore unable to appear on the field.
Faced with a shortage of players, Zibo Cuju eventually had to make the decision to forfeit the match to avoid a game that could not be played properly.
