On March 3, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) and the preparatory group of the Chinese Football League (CFL) withdrew the transfer letter on the resumption of home and away matches in the third-tier league, and fans rejoiced at the news. All 18 clubs in the Chinese Super League agreed to resume the home and away system.
The approval and declaration of the resumption of the home-and-away system must take into account local epidemic prevention requirements. However, with the recent rebound of the domestic epidemic, the expectation that the Chinese Super League can resume home and away matches on time has added a bit of uncertainty.
Another major concern for fans is the club's diversified shareholding reform and the unresolved wage arrears of some teams.
There is a strong link between the three: two consecutive years of the tournament system has led to a significant reduction in the exposure and brand value of the Chinese Super League, following the reform of the "neutral name", once again hit the confidence of investors. The widespread problem of unpaid wages in the league is not only a moral and legal issue, but also a direct manifestation of investor withdrawal from an economic perspective.
Starting from the 2020 season, the trend of diversified shareholding reform of soccer clubs is obvious. The concept was put forward in the overall development plan of China's soccer reform as early as 2015. However, at the specific level of implementation, some clubs that could have developed healthily without shareholding reform have instead completed it first, and even triggered new transition problems because of the mandatory shareholding reform. While some clubs in urgent need of injecting stability, the share reform has been slow, adding more uncertainty to the league access and the handling of salary arrears.
From the perspective of long-term avoidance of salary arrears, to avoid the collapse of investors fleeing, to ensure that the "professional league" is really a professional league, with due commercial value, is always the first task facing the Chinese soccer, for the degree of professionalism, marketization is not sufficient for the entire Chinese sports sector, but also a key exploration and game.
Investors Retreat, Players Seek Paychecks
Since the professionalization of Chinese soccer in 1994, the problem of unpaid wages has always plagued Chinese soccer. In the period of "Golden Dollar Football", although some individual teams occasionally owed wages, but the huge investment of the head clubs make wage arrears in the Chinese Super League seldom happen.
However, with the introduction of a number of binding policies in recent years, investors in Chinese soccer have gradually withdrawn, and the myth of high income in Chinese soccer has been gradually shattered, replaced by salary cuts and salary arrears - this is if the clubs are still in existence, while the worse case scenario is that the clubs simply disappear.
The 2020 season of the title-winning Suning, followed by a "stop"
In December 2020, in addition to the "neutral name" policy, there were also restrictions on team investment (a maximum of 600 million yuan per year for the Chinese Super League) and salary limits (no more than 5 million yuan for domestic players and no more than 3 million euros for foreign players).
More than a year later, the policy introduced at the end of 2020 was basically realized, but with it came the overall depression of China's professional soccer, as well as the national team's "Hanoi tragedy" in the World Cup.
With repeated stoppages and resumptions, the 2021 season of the Chinese Super League ended with a crossover for the first time. Before the start of the 2022 Super League season, the players' recovery of unpaid wages and the advancement of the team's shareholding reform have become issues that need to be resolved and have sparked heated public debate.
The latest public payroll appeared in Tianjin Jinmen Tiger, Xiao Zhi, Zheng Kaimu in the microblogging voice to ask for unpaid wages, and said that in the case of foreign aid salary arrears were prioritized, domestic players but pay no door, "very helpless."
Xiao Zhi openly asked for his salary on Weibo
Recently, Wuhan team, Shenzhen team and other teams of unpaid wages, but also in the public opinion continues to ferment. Wage arrears in the 2021 season since the Chinese Super League has become the "norm", and even the entire 2021 season without wage arrears of clubs, the Chinese Super League only 2.
National footballer Artemisia publicly demanded his salary
On February 18, 2022, the Japanese J-League kicks off its new season, which will be preceded by the South Korean K-League and other leagues in order to accommodate the changes in the global schedule brought about by the World Cup in Qatar. Since 2021, the Japanese media has been openly discussing the possibility of the J-League relaxing the restrictions on "unisex names" in order to increase club revenues and make up for the losses caused by the epidemic.
Japanese media discusses J-League neutral name policy
Under different legal frameworks, it would not be prudent to simply and crudely compare the league policies of the Chinese Super League with those of neighboring countries, and it would be difficult to directly replicate the policies of the various leagues in the different environments they face. However, how to promote soccer in the professional field, operate professional tournaments, and ensure that the tournaments have due commercial value is the common goal of the soccer authorities of various countries.
In the private investors "big retreat" in the background, hope on the local government and state-owned enterprises to invest in the "diversified shareholding reform", become China's soccer another main theme. However, the share reform situation varies from place to place, also shows that not all clubs where the government or local state-owned enterprises are willing to pay real money, to do not cost-effective "business".
Nearly 30 years of "professionalization", "renewal" still relies on emotion
On March 12, Dalian People's Club released an announcement, officially announcing the latest progress of the club's share reform. The Dalian Football Reform and Development Working Group signed an agreement with Wanda Group, One Side Group and Dalian People Professional Football Club, in which the Dalian Football Reform and Development Working Group set up a management team to receive the Dalian People Professional Football Club and manage the club in its entirety.
It is noteworthy that the announcement mentioned, "According to the agreement, Wanda Group will undertake all the historical debts of the club for more than twenty years before the reception and all the expenses of the club's operation, youth training and the operation of the Dalian School Football Primary School Base School for the next three years, and donate the Dalian Football Youth Training Base, which has a total cost of about 1.6 billion yuan, to the state-owned Dalian State-owned enterprise DETAI Holdings for the development of the soccer cause. With practical action to show the affection for the hometown city and support for Dalian soccer."
Shareholding structure of Dalian People's Club as shown by Skywatch
In Wanda "return to Chinese soccer", although the actual operating expenses of the Dalian team by the Wanda Group, but the club's equity has been in the party's banner, the completion of the share reform, Wanda is expected to once again with the Chinese soccer "face goodbye".
In the Dalian people soccer club's share reform, Wanda commitment to continue to bear the debt and the next three years of operating costs, but also for the club's smooth transition to reserve a sufficient "buffer zone", is expected to become a model of share reform. Wanda's concessions, become the key to the success of the Dalian people share reform. According to a March 13 report by Sports Weekly, Wanda has paid the club's operating funds for 2022 into the account of the new management.
But it also leads to thinking: after nearly 30 years of "professionalization", Chinese soccer still needs investors' "sentimental renewal" in order to be financially stable?
Among the 18 teams in the 2022 season of the Chinese Super League, those still with private sector participation still include Guangzhou, Guangzhou City, Beijing Guoan, Shenzhen, Henan Songshan Longmen, Cangzhou Lions, Wuhan, Wuhan Sanzhen, Hangzhou Greentown and nine other clubs, but the private sector's voice in the Chinese Super League is gradually declining with the advancement of the shareholding reform process.
In other clubs that have long completed the share reform, Shandong Taishan, Henan Songshan Longmen's finances were originally very healthy, the club itself has all kinds of assets, but also for the successful completion of the share reform to provide adequate protection. And is expected to complete the share reform of the club, Guangzhou City, the same financial not too many "legacy issues", is expected to successfully complete the transition with Guangzhou Automobile.
In stark contrast to Guangzhou City is the Guangzhou team in the same city. Unable to reach an agreement on the issue of pre-history debt, Evergrande Group will continue to operate the Guangzhou team independently in the new season, but with a drastically reduced budget, and will lose almost all of last season's starters to compete with the football school's youth team as the base.
Also stalled in the share reform is the Hebei team. As of now, the Hebei team still has not started training. According to a March 14 report by Soccer Daily, Hebei Football Club is still coordinating with Hebei Province and Langfang City. Despite the fact that Hebei's operating costs have dropped considerably over the last season, and that Huaxia is happy to deal with the club's previous debts, there is still no suitable local party to hand over the shares.
In today's commercial society, except for a few areas related to basic livelihood, "looking for investors who are willing to spend a lot of money", in fact, in all walks of life is a pseudo-proposition. Back to the issue of China's soccer stock reform is difficult, the root cause is still in the commercial value of the league.
However, after the 2021 season of the "fragmented league", fans' expectations of the Chinese Super League have also declined. Long-term inability to go to the scene to watch the game, but also many fans of the habit of watching football appeared "reverse growth". Offline, the Chinese Super League used to be "unique" at home. Online, only from the quality of the game, the Chinese Super League compared to the five major leagues but there is no advantage.
If you want to reshape the Chinese Super League business, restart the league home and away is only the first step must be done. As of now, this "first step" is only just taken, did not land. However, even after the completion of the Super League restart home and away, the distance from the full range of pulling business, driven by youth training, is still a long way to go.
Along with investors pulling out in droves, in addition to disappearing echelons, ball-less youths, players owed wages, and fans away from the stadium, there are also expectations about continued low investment from the capitalist community - and this is not only at the root of the difficulties in shareholding reform for some of the clubs, but also difficult to be easily "cured" with the passage of time "cured".
