Looking back to last November, a storm of unpaid wages arose within the Guizhou team, and rumor had it that the Hengfeng Group was planning to ditch the Chinese League One team as the 2021 season came to a close to build a Chinese Championship team in a different way. In the face of this storm, the club's senior management quickly stepped forward and promised to resolve the issue of unpaid wages. However, despite the end of the season, Guizhou remains quiet and the issue of players' unpaid wages has not been resolved.
As they prepare for the new season, the players have had to wait in place for news from the club, while some of them have filed a lawsuit with the local court in a bid to recover their unpaid wages through legal means.
On the eve of the start of the fourth stage of last season's Central League, Guizhou players publicly exposed the club's unpaid wages on the Internet, sparking widespread public concern. They complained that the club owed wages for a long period of time and was unable to guarantee first-team training at a critical time in the league.
The club's senior management then responded by promising to resolve the issue of unpaid wages and resume first team training.
However, despite the promises, the players' unpaid wages were never honored. At the end of the season, the players left the district without getting any information from the club about the time to close the vacation for the preparation of the new season and the issue of salary arrears.
Now, it's the end of February 2022 and there is still no notice in the first team group of any vacation reminders or compensation for unpaid wages. Players with expired contracts are looking for new owners, while those with contracts are anxious about whether the club can continue to exist. After all, there were rumors last year that Hengfeng Group was going to give up the Central League team and join the Champions League in Qiannan instead.
What makes the players even more anxious is the question of when the unpaid wages will be honored. It is reported that some of the players who are owed wages have appointed lawyers to handle the matter. Unlike most of the players, they chose to file a civil lawsuit directly with the local court instead of seeking help from the FA Arbitration Committee.
These players said that Guizhou clubs have not honored their judgments to pay their unpaid wages, despite the fact that players have filed arbitration cases with the FA Arbitration Committee and won in the past two years. In the current football environment where salary arrears are common, the arbitration decisions of the FA Arbitration Committee are not sufficiently enforceable, resulting in the players having to seek the help of the civil courts with a view to recovering their wages. Despite the uncertainty of their future, they have no choice.
