Wang Chao said that this was because he encountered a practical bottleneck in his youth training. Amateur youth training was difficult to protect the club’s interests and provide guarantees for players.
Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, February 24 (reporter Xiao Shiyao, Shu Wen, and public soldiers) only 16 days after Fujian Chaoyue company officially completed its acquisition of Yinchuan HELAN MOUNTAIN club Ningxia fire phoenix football team, on February 4th, the team was publicized by the Chinese Football Association because they did not submit the “salary and bonus confirmation form” on time, and they may not be able to participate in the second league next season. At present, they are still waiting anxiously.
This situation is not uncommon in today’s Chinese football world. There are 9 clubs publicized by the Chinese Football Association together with HELAN MOUNTAIN. Among them, the Zhongjia Guangdong South China tiger and others have directly announced their dissolution. It is reported that HELAN MOUNTAIN was shut out by the Chinese Football Association because the submission of the table was 7 minutes later than the deadline.
Why did the new shareholders still fail to change the fate of the only professional football team in Ningxia? Xinhua News Agency reporter investigated and found that it seemed to be a simple case of unpaid wages when the club of HELAN MOUNTAIN was shut out, but behind it was torturing the youth training system and the low-level league system of Chinese football, and these, it is an indispensable part of building a Chinese football pyramid.
The irreparable 7 minutes
Xinhua News Agency reporter learned from multiple channels that Yinchuan HELAN MOUNTAIN club submitted a “salary and bonus confirmation form” which was indeed only 7 minutes later than the deadline accepted by the Chinese Football Association, but these 7 minutes are hard to recover.
In fact, considering the current operating situation of some clubs and the impact of the epidemic, the Chinese Football Association has postponed the submission deadline twice, and the deadline has been postponed from January 15 to February 3. In this case, why is it still 7 minutes late?
Wang Chao, chairman of Fujian Chaoyue, the new shareholder, said that the problem of unpaid wages left by the club, which reached tens of millions of yuan in 2019, had not been solved. After the formal acquisition of 90 percent of the club’s equity in January 19 this year, he and Yinchuan Sports Bureau have been working as players, hoping to complete the entry of the Chinese Football Association to keep the team, but the process is not smooth.
“Yinchuan Sports Federation has sued Dalian first-hand fresh food company, the actual operator of the club before, and claimed salaries for the players through civil litigation. As a new major shareholder, I also promised the players that as long as they signed through the admission, they would give everyone hair padding salary for two months.” Wang Chao said.
“Some players hesitated to sign until the end, and the objective reason for the poor logistics caused by the epidemic was finally 7 minutes late.” Wang Chao said that the club has sent a letter to the Chinese Football Association in accordance with the procedure, hoping to retain the qualification, and is still waiting for the Football Association to decide.
However, Liu Zhenghang, a lawyer of Beijing strategy law firm who accepted the entrustment of players and other relevant personnel to sue the club for overdue pay at that time, told the reporter: “No matter whether it is true or not 7 minutes later, what is clear is that there are still some people who have not signed the salary confirmation form. Even if it is not 7 minutes late, it is difficult for the club to pass the review of the Chinese Football Association.”
According to the explicit provisions of the Chinese Football Association, the club cannot pass the admission if it is submitted overdue, not submitted or the submitted “salary and bonus confirmation form” is incomplete. If the relevant personnel have any objection to the authenticity of the publicity content of the Chinese Football Association, they should submit written materials within the specified time.
The prospect of Yinchuan HELAN MOUNTAIN club being allowed to participate in China B is not particularly bright under the objective doubts of unpaid wages and signatures.
The situation of multiple failures and injuries
The problem of unpaid wages has always been a chronic disease that perplexes the development of Chinese football. In recent years, the Chinese Football Association has issued a strict “salary and bonus confirmation form” system to crack down on unpaid wages. If the club cannot submit the “salary and bonus confirmation form” signed by all players, coaches and staff as scheduled before the start of the next season, the club will be disqualified from entering the league.
Persuade the players to sign and confirm that “they have received full salary” first, and then solve the problem of players’ back pay after the admission is completed, which is an open secret in the Chinese football world. In addition to Yinchuan HELAN MOUNTAIN, Wang Yi, deputy general manager of Guangdong South China tiger, also told reporters that he had persuaded the players in this way.
According to the Xinhua News Agency reporter, more than one club that has submitted the confirmation form has the problem of back pay, but they all passed the crisis temporarily by successfully persuading the players to sign.
Why do many players who encounter back pay choose to sign? In addition to keeping the job, what is more important is that in real cases, once the club is disbanded because it cannot complete the admission, it is almost difficult for the players to get their salaries back.
According to the current regulations, during the duration of the club, the case of players’ unpaid wages is the responsibility of the Arbitration Committee of the Chinese Football Association; After the club is dissolved, it should be resolved through social labor arbitration or court prosecution. Liu Zhenghang told the reporter: “In practice, many cases show that the Football Association for disputes over unpaid wages after the dissolution of the club does not care, nor does the Labor Arbitration Commission and the court. The most typical case is Dalian Chaoyue club. After the dissolution last year, the dispute over overdue pay was rejected by the Football Association on the grounds that there was no jurisdiction. The players had been sued from the labor arbitration commission to the Liaoning provincial high court, and finally the high court still ruled that the jurisdiction would not belong to the court. Therefore, in the case that this field is still in a legislative blind spot, it is easy to enter a dead end to launch rights protection rashly.”
After studying all kinds of things, sang Yifei, the captain of Shenyang Hongyun team in Liaoning, made a public sigh after the club fell into a signing storm recently: “The team still has hope in everything! The team is gone, and the result is only a double lose!”
For Yinchuan HELAN MOUNTAIN club, although the arrival of new shareholders makes them not disband directly like other teams, once it is finally confirmed that they cannot participate in the China B League, then it is also a huge loss for Fujian to surpass the docking team for only a month.
Wang Chao said that he would try his best to keep the club running smoothly, but it was impossible to bear all the debts owed by the company before. Whether the players can get all the unpaid wages still needs to wait for the court’s trial results.
The “occupational distress” of amateur youth training
Why does Fujian Chaoyue, who focuses on amateur youth training, want to get a qualification of China B? Especially in the case of general losses in the China-B league? Wang Chao said that this was because he encountered a practical bottleneck in his youth training. Amateur youth training was difficult to protect the club’s interests and provide guarantees for players.
Wang Chao once played for many Chinese Super League teams as a professional player. After he retired, the Fujian beyond Club, founded by him, participated in the China B League in 2014 and 2015, and then transferred the club to Jiangsu Yancheng Dingli, fujian surpassed the establishment of the youth team and began to concentrate on the youth training, training a number of players who were selected as the National Youth and the National Youth.
But what puzzled Wang Chao was that the youth training institutions, which mainly provided reserve power for professional league matches (Super League, middle A, middle B), suffered many losses because they did not have “professional qualification.
“We do youth training for the purpose of cultivating professional players, sending players to many teams of the Chinese Super League, and realizing self-financing through cultivating reselling. But because we are not a professional club, we have no right to sign professional contracts with our children. Some agents encouraged parents to go to the Chinese Football Association to sue the club, and then the players left freely. Brokers profited huge profits, but the club suffered heavy losses, and the joint compensation mechanism was only a drop in the bucket.” Wang Chao said.
“Players train here for free. A Echelon saves 2 million a year, and it takes 12 million years to cultivate. Selling the best two is enough for me to raise this team. But the best players are free to go directly, and such losses cannot be borne.” Wang Chao said.
At present, Chinese football has a joint compensation mechanism, “but (each player) enters the Chinese Super League compensation 500000, middle a 250000, middle B 100000, it is far from the money I spent on training.” Wang Chao said that the value of professional players should not be an average game.
In addition, Wang Chao told the reporter that 16 players in his U19 echelon had been acquired by the whole system of a Chinese club to meet the entry requirements of the echelon construction of the Chinese Football Association. As a result, one year later, the whole echelon directly “disappeared”, the team was disbanded, the players were also scattered, and the direct loss was over 10 million.
Therefore, the more you want to engage in amateur youth training, the more you need to get a professional qualification.
The bottleneck Wang Chao encountered is not an example. Liu Liangbin, chairman of Shangwen group, also expressed the same concern when the reporter interviewed in Wuhan Shangwen group in June, 2019. Wuhan Shangwen group cooperated with Wuhan Football Association to build 02-11 age echelon. In the youth training year, it invested hundreds of millions of yuan, with a total of 700 trained players. The scale is so, “but there are not many ways to resist the brain drain of teenagers at the club level.” Liu Liangbin said.
Based on this, Wuhan Shangwen Group established the professional club Wuhan three towns in 2018 and rose from the Champions League to the China B league in 2019.
“Chinese football needs Evergrande and also needs us”
while waiting for the result, Wang Chao said that he had done a good job in two way stretch. Once the Chinese Football Association failed to “open the screen”, he plans to reorganize the team with players willing to stay in the team and his youth training players and stay in Yinchuan to participate in the Champions League.
Wang Chao said that they came to Ningxia, “first, Fu Jian and Ningxia are the counterpart assistance, and as a Fujian enterprise, they also respond to the call of ‘minning cooperation. Secondly, Ningxia’s support for football is very high. The team’s eating and living, including the stadium and training venues, are free of charge, which can solve one third of the enterprise’s expenses “.
“Our main business beyond Fujian is football, and we want to explore how to make a good connection between youth training and profession. At that time, Xu Genbao made Shanghai East Asia a Super League. We couldn’t do the Super League, so we wanted to do it according to the model of China B.” Wang Chao said.
“If there is no team in Ningxia, it is really a pity. Many players are willing to stay and I am confident that I can fight B. But it will waste a year, and the champions are amateur teams. For my little players, the training platform is not enough.” Wang Chao said.
According to an industry survey, the average income of Club B in the 2018 season was only 9 million yuan, and the average player payroll expense reached 8 million yuan, with an average loss of 20 million yuan per club. Wang Chao planned that no matter what the result was, he would take part in China B with low-cost youth training players in the future, and he would sell his achievements and continue to feed the youth training.
“Our low-level league matches are now operated by burning money, but Chinese football cannot burn money for all clubs. In a mature professional league system in Europe, there must be many professional clubs mainly selling youth training, but there are few in China.”
“We are not a rich man, and we also do careers for youth training. There are thousands of youth training institutions in China now, and few people are willing to take jobs. This road is very difficult, and we hope to draw a way. In addition to the need for large enterprises like Evergrande, I think we also need small enterprises like us.” Wang Chao said.
Wang Chao believes that the dissolution of several clubs in the low-level league has brought earthquake-like landslide changes to Chinese football, and the essence is still to repay debts for the overheating of the previous two years. In 2014 and 2015, “it was relatively easy to participate in China B at that time, and it was enough to operate 6 million yuan a year. The final sale was because the player’s salary was too high and there was no way “.
“Now the salaries of players and coaches in the China-B club are over one million, and the income of the club is not enough. How can it last long. Players and coaches seem to have received high salaries, but once the club collapses, the contracts will be empty. I am professional players are born and know the hard work of the players.”
In fact, some media pointed out that with the disappearance of many teams, some players may find employment difficulties in Chinese football this season.
“Once the team investors run away, the club wants to find new investors. Large enterprises with the strength to repay debts will not look at the low-level league matches, small and medium-sized enterprises like me who want to take over cannot bear all the debts before the club. The result is that new investors are discouraged and there is no way to do it when they come in.” Wang Chao said.
Behind the nine or even more unpaid clubs are the livelihood problems of more than 200 professional players and the investment of hundreds of millions of yuan by investors. How to protect the interests of players and investors at the same time and establish a benign low-level league system has undoubtedly become an urgent problem for Chinese football.
“Of course, the Chinese Football Association also realized this and formulated a system such as salary limit, which is still in the process of squeezing bubbles. I hope that the Football Association can listen to the opinions of small and medium-sized clubs, and also hope that in the future, China’s professional league matches will have the living space of small clubs that focus on youth training like us.” Wang Chao said.