The issue of attraction adjustment fees in our professional leagues has been the subject of much debate since the beginning. This controversial guideline is now facing an unprecedented comprehensive review and overhaul. The huge amount of money paid by the clubs for the reinforcement adjustment fee will also be subjected to strict scrutiny, will it be abolished or will it continue to be levied? Whether these funds were used for anything reasonable and legal or will eventually need to be returned to the clubs, these questions may be answered in the near future.
The reason why the CFA must respond to this is that one club that had paid the reinforcement conditioning fee has now filed an application to recover the fee. In addition to the reasons why other clubs have not paid the required reinforcing conditioning fee, the club has also cited the plight of survival. After all, clubs in the Chinese Super League are generally facing an operational crisis. Since the FA lacks legitimacy in charging the fee, claiming that it is used for youth training but is unable to account for it or even issue invoices, and some clubs have even failed to pay it to date, it would undoubtedly be a reasonable claim if the money could be used for club operations.
It is reported that the leadership of the Football Association has ordered the relevant departments to discuss the matter and try to come up with a solution. If a refund is really needed, it will obviously not be limited to one club.
Reinforcement adjustment fee first began to be implemented in 2017, the Chinese Football Association in the summer of 2017 on the registration of the transfer period to collect reinforcement adjustment fee related to the work of the implementation of the opinion: if the club reinforcement expenses exceed the reasonable range, in the Chinese Super League registration for the registration of the player transfer, you need to provide proof of the remittance of money to the account of the Chinese Football Association Ball Development Foundation. If the formalities are complete, the registration office of the Football Association will handle the registration and transfer of players for the club.
In February 2018, the CFA issued supplementary rules on the implementation of the work related to the collection of reinforcement adjustment fee, emphasizing that in the process of player transfer, if the club avoids paying the reinforcement adjustment fee, it will face the punishment of deducting the league points and need to make up for the reinforcement adjustment fee, and at the same time, suspend the player's eligibility to participate in the competition until the club finishes making up for the payment. The rules also specify the criteria for deducting points, up to a maximum of 15 league points. This means that the attitude of the Football Association has been very strong, avoiding the payment of conditioning fees will lead to the suspension of the player's eligibility, the team deducted league points.
Since 2018, the CFA has publicized the transfer of conditioning fees several times.
On February 22, 2019, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) issued a notice on the continued implementation of the policy of attraction adjustment fee in the 2019 season of the Chinese Super League and the Chinese League A. The notice was issued by the Chinese Football Association (CFA).
On December 31, 2019, the CFA issued a notice of the Chinese Football Association on the adjustment of the guidelines of the professional league for the 2020 season, which stipulated that "the standard of the transfer and reinforcement conditioning fee for domestic players and foreign players will remain unchanged, and the levy of the conditioning fee will be changed from the full amount to the difference (i.e., only the part of the transfer fee exceeding the standard part of the conditioning tax will be levied) ".
The last documented public announcement by the CFA regarding the attraction conditioning fee was made on March 19, 2019 . That is to say, since the summer window of 2019, there has been no further publicized information. By the winter window of 2021, the latest payment of the attraction conditioning fee was Shenzhen Football Club's contribution for Jintro.
According to media statistics, coupled with 2018, a cumulative total of eight foreign aid transfers involved in the payment of the transfer fee, respectively, Paulinho, Talisker (Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao), Hamsik, Carrasco (Dalian party), Bakambu, Bieira (Beijing Zhonghe Guoan), Fellaini (Shandong Luneng Taishan) and Modest (Tianjin Quanjian), the above players transferred to pay the total amount of the transfer fee of more than one billion yuan. The total amount of transfer fees paid by the above players is about more than one hundred million RMB. Together with Jintero, Guoan, Evergrande, Dalian people, Luneng, Quanjian, Shenzhen football, have paid this money.
However, the fee program, the Citation Adjustment Fee, has been controversial since its inception.
First of all, the Football Association then planned to incorporate this fund into the China Football Development Foundation for the construction of soccer infrastructure, youth soccer development and other work. However, according to the relevant management regulations of associations and foundations, this conditioning fee charge cannot be counted as a donation cost of a certain organization, which has touched on a number of management rules of associations' management and charging, and some financial rules and guidelines are even difficult to overcome. Specifically, it is impossible to issue invoices to the clubs at the time of collection, and the money collected cannot be utilized as intended because of the various rules governing the management of associations and fees.
Secondly, Shanghai Seaport's failure to pay up the conditioning fee for Arnautovic has also been widely disputed.
In the annual report released by Shanghai International Port (Group) for the year 2020, the column of other payables in Section XI of the financial report shows that Shanghai SIPG Club (now Shanghai Seaport) still has a conditioning fee of 149.53 million yuan for the introduction of foreign aid Arnaud that has not been paid to the CFA. Shandong Luneng, also a state-owned enterprise, paid the conditioning fee for Fellaini, but Seaport FC has not turned it in, even though Arnautovic has already moved away in the summer window of 2021, making the existence of this guideline, and the collection of this fee, highly controversial.
Earlier, the media reported, "According to the insiders of the Football Association, Chen Xuyuan, who is in charge of the financial power, has his own opinion on the policy of adjusting fees for reinforcements left by the previous term - since the Chinese Super League Company and the CFA can not issue invoices to the clubs, they should not continue to collect the fees from the clubs. This is why Arnau's transfer fee has only existed on the books for a year and has been delayed." If the report is true, it means that Chen Xuyuan, the president of the CFA, also recognizes the problem of the transfer fee for reinforcements, so this time, when a Chinese Super League club claims the transfer fee that was previously submitted, it is the best opportunity to adjust this policy.
