On May 2, Guangzhou soccer proudly unveiled the first-line elite squad for this season's Chinese Super League as well as a brand new squad list for the U21 and U19 ladder teams. In this list, star players such as Wei Shihao, Yan Dinghao, Yang Liyu, Wu Shaocong and Jiang Guangtai are listed. However, two players, Li Xuepeng and Zhang Xiuwei, were unfortunately left out of the list, as they are temporarily out of football due to missing the transfer window, and are expected to look for new opportunities when the transfer window reopens on August 1st.
It is worth mentioning that most of the core players who returned to the team earlier were granted free agency through the release of their contracts. It is reported that the Guangzhou team got a sum of money in April, and promptly paid two months of back wages to the coaches and players who were owed wages. This is a big reason why players such as Wei Shihao, Yang Liyu and Wu Shaocong chose to stay. The club assured the players that once the National Football Association adjusts the reinforcement adjustment fee, it will be the first time to be used to solve the problem of players' unpaid wages.
Although no progress has been made on the return of the reinforcement adjustment fee, the club's strategy for retaining players has been quite clever - the retention of Wei Shihao, Yang Liyu, and Yan Dinghao means that their annual salaries have been agreed with the club. Li Xuepeng and Zhang Xiuwei, who failed to enter the first-team, have speculated that the club may have provided a large gap between their annual salary and their expectations.
Of course, in order to keep Wei Shihao and other top players, Guangzhou Football Club also had to pay a high price. After all, according to the previous annual salary of 15 million yuan and 600,000 yuan of the team's highest pay scale, to keep Wei Shihao such as international players, they are afraid that their income will be more than the standard set by the club in February released the soccer club's players fixed and salary norms plan.
