China Super League (soccer league)
Beacon is still in the air, yet the haze of players' unpaid wages still lingers. Rong Hao, Yin Hongbo and other players microblogging for salary, stirred up a wide range of discussions in the industry and society. In fact, the problem of salary arrears in the Chinese Super League is not an isolated phenomenon, if effective measures are not taken, this potential time bomb, once detonated, its negative impact will affect the entire league and even Chinese soccer.
How, exactly, did this turbulence form? And how will it be defused?
In 2021, Chinese Super League (CSL) clubs struggled to hold on to their woes, with a record number of cases submitted to the CFA Arbitration Committee (hereinafter referred to as the Arbitration Committee), the highest body of the Chinese Football Association (CFA) dealing with labor disputes. In previous years, the Arbitration Commission has never been so busy. Over the past decade, Chinese soccer has been in a money-burning mode, coupled with a strict audit of the access mechanism, there are relatively few disputes over unpaid wages.
However, the epidemic and the introduction of the salary limit order led to the re-signing of player contracts, and a large number of disputes arose. From individual lawsuits to club class action lawsuits, the amount of money and complexity of materials involved has increased, the number of lawsuits in China A and B has increased, and the Arbitration Commission in the 2021 season is exhausted just by sorting through the case files, confirming the filing of the case and not filing the case, and explaining the reasons.
In this case, the Arbitration Commission adopts the principles of classifying hearings and prioritizing, giving priority to players who wish to transfer freely in order to find a new team due to unpaid wages by granting a judgment on the players' status first without delaying the players' search for their next home, and postponing the handling of disputes over when to compensate for unpaid wages.
For those players who do not want to terminate their contracts and recover past unpaid wages, they are temporarily pending without judgment. In addition, a considerable number of lawsuits by players who were forcibly laid off by their clubs and who wish to continue to fulfill their contracts or receive the compensation due to them have not yet been given a final judgment either. As to when the results will be available, according to the Arbitration Commission, as long as they are given within six months of the start of the proceedings, they are in line with the regulations.
However, even international players like Rong Hao and Yin Hongbo are living under great pressure due to salary arrears, and other players, especially many players at the bottom of the ladder, are suffering even more. Faced with the huge pressure of repayment, many players don't even know if they can stay in the house before the result of the ruling comes out, and the house may even be repossessed by the bank before they can recover the unpaid wages.
Rong Hao revealed that former TEDA boss Strikers got their unpaid wages due to an appeal to FIFA. This is not an isolated case, the Chinese Super League this year left a lot of foreign aid and coaches, most of them are amicable parting, unless the amount of compensation is huge, or generally can be settled clearly.
The clubs have different ways of dealing with the foreign aid issue. Only if the clubs still want to bring in foreign aid, or if they are not thinking of quitting this season, they have to plug the loophole of owing the foreign aid and foreign coaches' salaries, and they have to plug the loophole. But the money of Chinese players, can be owed first, this is why?
The reason is very simple, in addition to foreign aid and foreign coach can appeal to FIFA, more importantly, FIFA has a fatal killing move in hand, once the club does not cooperate with the maintenance of the integrity of the contract, it will be able to restrict the defaulting clubs in the transfer, not in the introduction of foreign aid on the issuance of permits, in which case, the road to replace the foreign aid is blocked, and the Chinese Football Association does not dare to violate the ban of the FIFA, in the domestic transfer market will also be Restrictions will be imposed. Because of this, the Jinmen Tigers have paid back the money owed to Strikers, and only in the summer window period did Jin Yangyang and others join the team, otherwise, the road to attracting reinforcements is blocked, and it may be more difficult for them to stay in the relegation.
The reason why the clubs are not in a hurry to pay back the money of the Chinese players, in addition to the Chinese players can not appeal to FIFA, more importantly, the strength of the Chinese players themselves, as well as indispensable and irreplaceable, far less than foreign aid. A few years ago, when the transfer market burned the most money, some clubs signed a lot of sky-high contracts, sober investors are unable and unwilling to continue to pay the bill, especially after some investors retreated, the remaining plate no one to pick up, signed the contract has become a hot potato.
Among the cases accepted by the Arbitration Commission in the current year, many of them are based on very clear grounds that they are separate breaches of contract and that the clubs should be compensated, but in many cases, the Arbitration Commission has been unable to adjudicate on them.
Why? The reason is very simple, because there are several clubs where wage arrears are extensive, and it is impossible to adjudicate only one case but not the others. The Arbitration Commission has also exchanged views with the clubs that owe wages, and many of them have revealed that they will not rule out the possibility of withdrawing from the game once they are judged to be required to make full compensation for the wages in arrears. If they are unable to repay, they can only choose to go into bankruptcy and liquidation, then some of the existing players, who will face unemployment, the situation may be even worse.
The league is underway, and if there is a mishap at this point, and if a team does pull out as a result, it will have a negative impact on the integrity of the league, the long-term interests of most players, the interests of the league's sponsors, and the overall image of China's professional leagues.
It can be said that any judgment involves one hair and affects the whole body, so many cases, except for the complaints of Rong Hao and Zheng Kaimu, which have not been followed up for more than two months, as well as the complaints of some domestic coaches and players, have likewise sunk without a trace.
Contract is reality, arrears of wages is also reality, shortage of funds, can not continue to pay a high salary is also reality. Players to defend their rights and interests is right, but the club can not get so much money to pay out is also a reality, contradiction, how to solve?
According to the FIFA 2021 Regulations on Player Status and Transfers, the contract section is described as "firmly upholding the integrity of the contract, a valid contract can only be terminated in two ways, the first is the expiry of the contract, and the second is the termination of the contract after consultation between the two parties with the consent of both parties." From the player's point of view, the contract can be terminated with just cause (but must pay the corresponding financial compensation), and the player contract has a protection period, the player and the club, regardless of which party, in the protection period to terminate the contract for reasons other than just cause, will be subject to the corresponding financial and athletic double punishment.
But all of this is based on the fact that in the days when the soccer market was great, the rules were perfect, and investors were getting into the game, we all took our contracts very seriously. For many Premier League clubs nowadays, nothing is more important than staying alive, and reputation, morality and the spirit of the contract are put aside for the time being.
At the beginning of the year there are a number of teams, directly tell the player to terminate the contract, without any communication, in accordance with the labor contract law (hereinafter referred to as the contract law), according to the player's length of service in the club, every year will be given to one month's salary compensation, less than six months according to half a year. That is to say a player who has played in the club for two years and still has three years of contract left to complete, can only get his two months salary compensation is necessary to leave. For the player's complaint that the direct termination of the contract is unreasonable, the club believes that the player has been given free agency, which is the maximum compensation.
If you follow this logic, all contracts can actually be voided at any time, as long as the club to give the player free agency by the way the annual salary is converted into months of salary compensation can be. But obviously, the Arbitration Commission does not recognize such a theory, after all, the CFA everything to comply with FIFA's standards of work, the contract of professional players to comply with the labor law (because it is the supreme law) but can not be copied in full accordance with the model of the contract law (because the labor law is a general sense of the law in a specific field of work to be weaker than the special law, the soccer circle that is the special field).
Soccer players are not like workers in the general sense, ordinary workers do not have a special window to find a job, soccer players in the search for work and channels and time have too much specificity, therefore, if everything copied the contract law judgment of the Chinese players' contract, obviously contrary to FIFA's work standards. Although the Chinese players can not be appealed to FIFA, but if the judgment on the black and white really is only in accordance with the general sense of the contract law and completely disregard the special characteristics of the work of the judgment, once the exposure, the arbitration committee will become the laughing stock of the entire world soccer world.
The Arbitration Commission and the clubs also disagree to varying degrees on termination and liquidated damages, and it's not clear who can convince whom, so many cases are then delayed indefinitely to give a final judgment.
However, the players were not aware of all this, so many of them openly demanded their salaries on the Internet and denounced the inaction of the Arbitration Commission, but the matter was not as simple as the players thought. When we understand all this, we will find that this is not something that can be solved by the Arbitration Commission alone, and better mechanisms and rules are needed to prevent more similar incidents from arising in the future.
So, will the unpaid wages just drag on and not be resolved? Perhaps for the sake of livelihood and rice bowls, active players will bear the humiliation, perhaps both sides reached a deferred discount payment agreement to settle the matter. But for those whose income is not high, and has retired and is owed wages for the players, who will do justice? Obviously, can only rely on the CFA, the conditions, is that they are willing to take up the responsibility.
This time, the large salary arrears, not only to solve some controversial contractual issues, but also more importantly, to remove some of the risks, so that the salary back to rationality, so that the future will not produce similar incidents, damage the image of Chinese soccer.
In fact, a large part of the players have been forgotten, including the former players of Liaozhu, Qianzhao, and Beyond clubs, who had paid, but their salaries and hard-earned money have been owed, and with the disappearance of the clubs, this group of players has become the victims, the District Court refused to accept the petition on the grounds that there is an agreement in the contract that disputes can only be resorted to the working association; and the CFA said that the target of the complaint is no longer a working member and lacks the The CFA said that the subject of the complaint was no longer a working member and lacked the power to enforce the law and could not do justice. Therefore, they have no way to complain.
Obviously, there are flaws in the rules of work, and the cost of default by clubs is so low that some investors come in and out "at will", and after accomplishing their own purposes of acquiring land, advertising or other commercial purposes, they leave behind a trail of chicken feathers and run away. Now, many clubs are carrying out equity changes, in addition to sharing the pressure of investment, but also to monitor the investors.
As a working association, CFA should make adjustments to its entry qualifications and default costs to minimize the continued unchecked generation of irrational investments that lead to hasty exits and then bring significant losses to practitioners who are not at fault for their work, or even to the work as a whole.
On the current situation, the CFA Arbitration Committee should negotiate with the clubs and players, so that the two sides calmly communicate, can be the best of grace; from the players' point of view, should also be appropriate to understand the clubs, focus on the overall situation, I believe that most of the disputes, is able to be resolved.
