Wuhan Changjiang Football Salon recently dealt with two cases left over from last year, involving disputes over unpaid wages between players and coaches and transfer disputes with other clubs. The club has made a clear commitment to pay all arrears in full by July 31 this year.
Meanwhile, the Chinese League One club Zibo Cuju is also facing the problem of unpaid wages for three players from last year. The club also presented a detailed repayment plan and timetable when submitting its application, including payment in three installments and a commitment to pay off all arrears by July 31st.
The three clubs, while promising to repay the money, also made it clear that if they were unable to fulfill their promises by the deadline, they would accept any penalties imposed by the CFA, including: new players registered during the original penalty period would be banned from the game; the enforcement of the CFA's penalty decision would resume; and they could face harsher disciplinary actions such as deduction of points from the league.
Against this background, the CFA, after a study, finally decided to "temporarily exempt the above three clubs from the penalty of 'prohibiting the registration of new players'" and issued a notice to the clubs.
②Exemptions from the ban: a pragmatic move
As we all know, due to the impact of the epidemic, Chinese soccer, especially professional soccer, has suffered far more than the outside world expected. In fact, observing the current predicament of domestic SMEs, one can have a deeper understanding of how difficult it is for professional clubs to survive. To a certain extent, the phenomenon of large-scale wage arrears has also become understandable as the parent companies or enterprises of many clubs are also facing practical difficulties.
For Chinese professional soccer as a whole, the rules certainly need to be enforced, as has been the case in the past with the top entry criterion - no unpaid wages. Can this year's Chinese Super League continue to strictly enforce this access rule? Of course. As the saying goes, "enforcement must be strict", but if it is strictly enforced, only four of the 16 Chinese Super League clubs may not have any unpaid wages in the past season. Then, what about the 2022 Chinese Super League? Should we just let these 4 clubs continue to play and let the professional league come to a halt? As for the situation faced by the clubs in China A and B, the situation is even more severe.
Against this background, the CFA as well as the preparatory group of the China Professional Football Federation (CPFF) are able to face up to the reality and adopt corresponding alternative measures, i.e., to require the clubs to submit a detailed plan to deal with the issue of wage arrears, and to request that the issue of wage arrears be resolved in phases and batches within the year 2022. If it is not possible to complete the work before the specified time point, and then take more severe punishment measures such as deduction of points, which should be a feasible approach. Just like the "suspension of the penalty of 'banning the registration of new players'", it is also a way to cope with the reality of the problem and a pragmatic choice.
As a result of the epidemic there has been a huge impact on the entire society and profession. At the current stage, many professions are also suffering from the problem of unpaid wages, and not only soccer clubs, but also sports clubs such as basketball and volleyball, whose parent companies have also suffered a huge impact. For Chinese soccer nowadays, there is a need for criticism and supervision, but more importantly, there is a need for feasible and effective ways to deal with the actual problems in order to save the entire Chinese professional soccer league. Chinese soccer doesn't need "people who understand" who can only talk "funny" but can't come up with any substantive solutions!
