With the new head of the Football Association, Song Kai, the first league directive he issued was to ask professional teams to submit their applications for admission by December 5th. Such a move has led to an early start of the admission drama that used to take place in the spring of previous years. Currently, China's soccer league is gradually bidding farewell to the era of "Golden Dollar Soccer" manipulated by real estate developers, and stepping into a new era of "Public Interest Soccer" promoted by city investment companies. Cangzhou Lions, as the transition between the old and new era, has taken the lead to enter the field, but the team in the completion of the equity reform has been exposed to long-term unpaid wages.
Accounts vary as to how long the Cangzhou Lions have been in arrears, with the longest being up to five years, and the most common report being three years. Looking back at past reports, the Cangzhou Lions have been associated with unpaid salary news almost every year. During this spring's access tournament, it was revealed that the team owed at least 13 months of wages and that six players refused to sign a wage confirmation; despite this, the FA approved the team's access.
Although the Chinese Football Association (CFA) appears to be somewhat lax in domestic affairs, it is difficult to escape from the constraints of FIFA. In June of this year, FIFA imposed a penalty of "banning the registration of new players" on the Cangzhou Lions for "failing to implement the arbitration award". This penalty seems harsh, but in fact reflects the helplessness of FIFA for transnational disputes, because the Cangzhou Lions payroll problem not only involves foreign aid, but also affects the local players.
So how did the Football Association approve the Cangzhou Lions' entry when six players were clearly unsigned? This is due to a "clever" operation of the FA. Originally, whether the players need to go through the FA arbitration, arbitration cases will be categorized as "disputes", the FA in the access to the deadline for all arbitration cases will be categorized, so the situation of the unsigned players are considered as "disputes" rather than "unpaid wages Therefore, unsigned players are considered as "disputes" rather than "unpaid wages", thus not affecting the club's entry audit. What's more, some players received the arbitration result confirming unpaid wages from the FA the day after the transfer window closed, but this did not affect the club's entry audit, instead, it resulted in the player not being able to join the new team immediately after the confirmation of unpaid wages, and had to wait for the opening of the summer window in half a year's time.
However, the CFA is not so lenient to all teams. The reason why Cangzhou Lions got in is that the team has completed its shareholding reform. As we all know, former CFA president Chen Xuyuan advocated "public welfare soccer", he advocated the end of gold dollar soccer, and believed that the future of Chinese soccer should be supported by enterprises with social responsibility. Therefore, after the shareholding reform, the team is jointly owned by a number of enterprises, in order to reduce the pressure of funding from a single enterprise.
Which enterprises need to assume social responsibility? Naturally, it is state-owned enterprises. The reality of the Chinese Super League clubs is that they are city investment companies across the country. Cangzhou Lions, formerly known as Shijiazhuang Yongchang, moved to Cangzhou precisely thanks to the capital injection from Cangzhou Construction Investment. Currently, Cangzhou CIC and Yongchang Real Estate each hold 50% of the club's shares, and Yongchang Real Estate continues to be responsible for the club's day-to-day operations.
Clubs in the era of gold-dollar soccer often live or die depending on how well the real estate developers are doing. In contrast, public interest soccer led by city investment companies, while more stable, suffers from the uncertainty of leadership changes. Previously, Shaanxi Chang'an Athletic quit due to this flaw, and Cangzhou Lions faced the same problem.
The Cangzhou Lions seem to combine the flaws of gold dollar soccer and public interest soccer, and I'm afraid it will take providence to see if this team's road to survival will be smooth.
According to Soccer Daily, there are still 4 teams in the Chinese Super League facing survival difficulties, and another 2 relegated teams are also experiencing serious crisis. Although the curtain has long been drawn on the access drama, the world of soccer is always full of variables, the exciting story continues, let us wait and see.
