The assembly of the Guangzhou team is like the bursting of a bubble. The former splendor, today's misery, like a dramatic reincarnation.
With a top salary of only 600,000 RMB for the players and a total annual salary of 15 million RMB for the whole team, Guangzhou has brought the salary standard of the cutting-edge league back to 20 years ago, which is not even as good as the relegation team of that year. Undoubtedly, this once glorious league powerhouse will face a challenging season, and unsurprisingly, they may have to fight for relegation for the whole season.
The Guangzhou team has become a shell of its former self, with star players leaving in droves as a result of drastic pay cuts. The multi-year Evergrande Football School has begun to produce players who participate at the adult level, but in China, where the foundation of soccer youth training is weak, expecting a newly established football school to quickly produce stars is tantamount to a fantasy.
Don't forget the famous quote - "You can't win anything with a bunch of kids". Although Alan Hansen once mocked Alex Ferguson with this quote, it was a fluke, and the class of '92 is a rare example of high-quality youth training, and the United of that year also boasted a host of established stars such as Cantona, Keane, Pallister, Erwin, Schmeichel and many more. In the world of soccer, it is extremely difficult to rely solely on a group of kids to gain a foothold in the adult game.
It's not just Guangzhou's plight. Salon stock reform has stalled, investors' business conditions continue to deteriorate, and the entire soccer market has rapidly faded over the past two years. Compared with three or four years ago, all salons have drastically cut down their expenses, and what used to be one person's salary is now burdened with a dozen or even twenty people.
However, the greater sadness lies ahead. No matter how much the overall strength of Guangzhou's first-team players has declined, the fact that they can get the Salon's top salary at least proves that the player is ranked in the top 200 of today's Chinese soccer. Maybe look at the new version of the CFA's salary limit, the top salary of each team is only 3 million yuan, and how many people can get it? What industry in China ranks in the top 100 elites and can't get that figure? The elimination rate in most industries is far less than in soccer, and there is also a greater sense of laddering. The top 100, the top 1,000, the top 10,000, and perhaps the median, all have a reasonable value, what about soccer? There are still people in the top 200 players getting paid with white slips.
Money is not everything. That's what that money-spinning bubble era taught us. Similarly, no money is not everything. Chinese soccer was already facing a crisis of broken talent, and in the face of this fact, how many children still have the motivation to continue on the road of professional soccer? Love cannot generate electricity.
