Old Fan next door to the singer sang in the single “Lost music” that time was in a hurry and we went through the torture of time. This lyrics suddenly appeared in the circle of friends of the protagonist of today’s story on the afternoon of April 28.
He doesn’t want to make his real name public, so let’s call him Xiao Fan. Even, he seems a little secretive about his current identity. He only wants to let readers know that he has played for several seasons in Baoding Rongda and has accompanied the team to rise and fall. Now, he has a firm idea. After a long company, he should probably say goodbye to this place.
There is no endless banquet in the world, but Xiao Fan’s departure is quite passive, even forced by life. Because he said that Baoding Yingli Yitong had not paid him a salary for a long time.
Yingli Yitong is also Rongda.
Baoding Yingli Yitong Football Club was originally an amateur club. In 2014, the team became a winning team in the Amateurish League finals of Chinese football. It was qualified to participate in the 2015 China League and became a miracle of grassroots football. Subsequently, Rongda Group, a local private enterprise, funded to take over the club, completed the registration, transfer and other work, and successfully joined the China B league in the 2015 season.
On January 2, 2019, the club issued a statement saying that Rongda group had stopped sponsoring the club and was no longer responsible for club matters. Therefore, they had no choice but to change their name back to Yingli Yitong.
“In the 2019 season, we got 3 months of basic salary, plus 5,000 yuan of living expenses, and a game winning award, which is from the beginning of 2019 to now, nearly a year and a half, all our income.” The complaints of Xiao Fan and his teammates are also mixed with some helplessness.
The past year has been extremely difficult for Yingli Yitong. Because the mediation letter of the Arbitration Committee of the Chinese Football Association was not implemented, the team was deducted six league points after the season, and fell from the fourth-last position in the North District, once falling into the relegated play area. The sudden blow did not defeat Xiao Fan and his teammates. “The team was finally relegated, and all of this was the persistence of our players.”
27-year-old fan originally planned to marry his long-loved girlfriend home this year. However, he said that the team’s salary arrears, coupled with the untimely emergence of the new Crown pneumonia epidemic, forced himself and his girlfriend to postpone the engagement, and the two families also fell into anxiety. “Life could have been better, but now all the plans have been broken.” Xiao Fan said.
In Xiao Fan’s eyes, the boss’s attitude is even unreasonable-it is a simple sentence: “If you have no money, agree to sign it first and then reissue it.” The content that the club asked Xiao Fan to sign not only needs to submit the salary confirmation form of the Chinese Football Association last season, but also a statement document-all first-team players, everyone has to sign a statement to thank team boss Meng Yongqiang.
“I really feel inexplicable. We didn’t get our normal salary, and asked us to sign some inexplicable thank-you letters.” Xiao Fan revealed that the club’s similar “exhortation” to the players has been said many times, with different rhetoric, but the ending is the same way, and no one can perform normally.
“Now the leaders of the club will not reply any messages at all. The phone will not answer, and WeChat will not reply.” The anger of Xiao Fan was hidden between words. “I now face the danger of overdue payments in addition to repaying the mortgage every month, as well as daily expenses and credit cards.”
A few days ago, the reporter contacted Meng Yongqiang, the team boss through Weibo. In the interview, he also said frankly: “He only paid three months’ salary and a part of the bonus.” Moreover, more than 9 million salary arrears, “The club certainly has no ability and assets to solve at present.”
Under the countless night sky, Xiao Fan left his figure of fighting in the green field, but the song “Lost Music” given to himself was very similar to the current portrayal of his football career. Love and career have troubled Xiaofan’s life-the severely reduced income has gradually pushed him to an unprecedented dilemma.
According to the reporter’s understanding, there are still many teammates who have encountered similar situations with Xiao Fan in Yingli Yi Tong array. One and a half years have passed, “some people earn less than 30000.” Under layers of pressure, some people have begun to jump out of football and look for ways to make a living. What’s more, I have already begun to work in express delivery and take-out. However, these players have been receiving football-related training since childhood. Playing football should be their “eating” skills.
When asked whether there were any players in the team who were living in poverty, Meng Yongqiang also had his own opinion: “Some young players, especially those who joined the team in 2019, the wage standard itself is low and there is a problem of back pay, which should be more difficult. As for other players, some may owe more than one million, but they have also earned a lot of money from the club. I don’t know if it is a shortage.”
“We have only been able to play football since we were young, so we have to choose to continue playing. We have to find other clubs to try to stay, but now we have to bear the trial training of any team, the round-trip ticket and the hotel still have the problem of eating.” Xiao Fan said.
“There is no charge for this club, but the club you go to will let you pay. Originally, life was already very difficult, and there was really no money to go out for trial training.” According to his introduction, due to the unknown and high cost of going out for trial training, the team “has few players”.
“I am fine now, because I have been playing in the league before, and some coaches know me better. After knowing this, they extended an olive branch to me.” Xiao Fan is currently in the South, participating in the daily training of another China B club. When the new season comes, it is likely to change the court and say goodbye to the past few years. However, how to solve the large salary arrears will continue to plague Xiao fan for a long time to come, and under pressure from Yingli Yitong, he said that he was not convenient to disclose more information about new things publicly.
From some angles, Xiao Fan is “lucky”, because not everyone can follow his path. “Others don’t have such a good opportunity, because there are too many disbanded teams now, and dozens of people compete for this transfer quota.”
When talking about his teammates, Xiao Fan was worried that the domestic professional league team had only five recruitment places a year. “We have been playing for the same team for many years, and we are definitely reluctant to grow up with the team. But now, we have to face various pressures in life.” Xiao Fan said.
According to the league management regulations, each club must submit a confirmation form of full payment of the salaries and bonuses of coaches, athletes and staff in the 2019 season on January this year. For many small ball games, this level is equivalent to a test of life and death. After the arrival of the deadline, up to 9 teams were disqualified from the second and second League matches next season. However, even though Baoding Yingli Yitong passed the insurance, it was questioned by many fans because of the same signature and handwriting on the form.
“At the end of the year, we had two young players who were notified to leave the team because they didn’t sign.” Xiao Fan did not directly state this, but only mentioned the experiences of two younger generations.
Three months later, the epidemic has blocked the pace of the season, and many issues are still pending. For example, can Yingli Yitong team continue to play in the China B league? In this regard, Xiao Fan’s answer was: “Now whether the team has been dissolved or not, the Football Association has not clearly announced it.”
Meng Yongqiang’s reply is also unclear: “The prospect of the club is still under exploration.” As for the current work of the team, he mentioned three points: “One is to ensure the Echelon’s normal training and competition; The other is to sue the loss caused by improper management of the Chinese Football Association; The third is to seek help from all walks of life, borrowing or sponsoring to raise funds to solve the problem of unpaid wages of players who meet the requirements of the club.”
As for how to define “the players who meet the requirements of the club”, Meng Yongqiang defined: the players who do not appeal to the Football Association for arbitration and do not seek help from the media. “If the club can’t raise funds for this part of players, I will personally find a way to solve it.” Meng Yongqiang added.
In the era when capital continuously flows into Chinese football Circle, professional players in middle and lower league matches worry about their livelihood. In the eyes of many outsiders, it is somewhat unbelievable. But what is certain is that on this unspeakable fertile soil, Xiao Fan is by no means the first victim or the last one. Many of them are suffering from unpaid wages.
A few days ago, the domestic media released an anonymous confession letter from Yingli Yitong players. There was a description that made people feel extremely depressed after reading: after so many years of salary collection, we have really tried everything, but the final result is that we can’t live any longer. When the fans look at the high-paying players who play Super League gracefully, they may not know, in the China B league, there were a group of miserable professional players who were playing hard, but they couldn’t even support their families.
Back to the song lost Music mentioned at the beginning, in fact, there is another sentence in the lyrics: Don’t you say, I lost happiness. For Xiao fan, I am afraid that this career will not bring him more fun for the time being.
As it is called, it is natural to repay money due to debts. Taking back the money that should belong to you, I’m afraid there is still a road that is not smooth waiting for Xiao Fan to pass. However, the experiences of many “small fans” should not be abandoned in the corner where no one cares. They reminded us that there were still shadows under the light at the top of the Chinese football pyramid, and those who survived in the cracks were waiting for the light to come. (Author Wang sishuo)