Reporter Cheng Shan reports Chongqing Liangjiang Athletic Club, which has been silent for a long time, was suddenly on holiday. The reporter learned that they are facing an existential crisis. Who would have thought that with the second stage of the Chinese Super League going to start in one month, the team will once again fall into a new situation. Dilemma-because the equity reform has not been completed for a long time, the club is not only burdened with the salary debts of the players, but also has reached a state of unsustainable daily expenditures. It even has the same situation of arrears for water and electricity as the Hebei team before, not only that , And repeatedly owed money to food suppliers. The money on the books of Chongqing Liangjiang Athletic Club can no longer support its daily operations. This time it has announced the suspension, it is still unknown whether it can participate in the December league.
This shouldn’t be the case! In late October, Du Zhaocai, deputy director of the State Sports General Administration and secretary of the Party Committee of the Chinese Football Association, and members of the preparatory group of the Chinese Professional Football Club Federation, went to Chongqing Liangjiang Longxing New City for investigation and held a meeting with the leaders of Chongqing Municipality and the Chongqing Municipal Sports Bureau Meeting. There were two themes of the conference, “Chongqing Professional Football Club Equity Reform” and “Asian Cup Preparation Forum”.
This meeting can be seen as a progress in the equity reform of Chongqing Liangjiang Athletic Club. After all, the involvement and participation of Liangjiang New Area has become deeper and deeper. Before this, the Chongqing club even participated in the employee football league in Liangjiang New District. Since Chongqing initiated the equity reform plan, Liangjiang New District has not only provided assistance with sponsorship funds and helped solve part of the problem of salary arrears at the beginning of the season, but also planned and prepared for the relocation of the home stadium and training venues next year. As the major shareholders of future equity reform, they are also waiting for the final approval of the Chongqing Municipal Government. Only with the official approval of the Municipal Government can the final procedures be perfected.
Regarding the club equity reform, the leaders of the Football Association and the league preparation team also emphasized several core contents: firstly, the club’s equity reform should be maintained simultaneously with club operations; secondly, according to the requirements of higher-level departments, the Chinese Super League will be restarted again in December. At this time, it is necessary to ensure that the 16 teams enter the competition area smoothly. At present (the situation at the time), more than 10 of the 16 Chinese Super League clubs have arrears. The attitude of the General Administration and the Football Association is to change the endgame left during the Jinyuan football period and return to a healthy state.
At present, most clubs in the Chinese Super League have initiated shareholding reforms, but the situation and progress of the reforms of each club are different, and the effects of the reforms are also very different. Basically, clubs other than Shandong Taishan have encountered various Difficulties. Therefore, all parties in Chongqing also hope that the General Administration of Sports and the Chinese Football Association can issue a “policy guide” and give a guiding opinion. The Chongqing government also expressed support for the club’s equity reform at the meeting and said that it has been advancing. Liangjiang New District has been making various preparations for a long time under this background.
At the end of the meeting, the statements of all participants were very positive, and for a time the Chongqing Liangjiang Club saw the hope of further promoting the equity reform, but unexpectedly, after about 20 days passed, the reforms fell silent again. Seeing the distance There is only one month left for the Chinese Super League to restart again. The current difficulties have left the players very at a loss. They had previously refused to enter the division because of the lack of salary and the lack of hope for the club’s crisis resolution.
If it is said that the entry of the Liangjiang New Area only owes the east wind, but at present no one knows where this most important “east wind” stops.
In the past two months, Chongqing has only convened a meeting on equity reform, but the meeting had no substantive effect. As we all know, the equity reform plan of Chongqing Liangjiang Athletic Club is to adopt the “4321” equity distribution model, with a total of four shareholders. According to the annual investment budget of 300 million yuan, the annual allocation of capital contributions by the four shareholders is also relatively clear. Liangjiang New District has no objection to its capital contribution as a major shareholder. Contemporary Group also agrees with the investment of small shareholders. Only the second and third shareholders have not made a clear statement.
Seeing time is getting closer and closer to the start of the Super League, the atmosphere of the entire club is also in the chaos of the external environment, becoming more and more anxious. After returning to Chongqing after playing the FA Cup, the Liangjiang Athletic Team took a period of vacation. After returning, the club originally planned to let the players go to Chengdu to participate in the opening match of Phoenix Mountain Stadium on November 5. This is related to the Asian Cup. Although the club’s intention is that the upper-level meaning of this game is higher than the game itself, although the club’s intention is that the upper-level meaning of this game is higher than that of the game itself, the players’ desire to participate was not strong at that time.
Because the shareholding reform did not move for a long time, Liangjiang Athletic Club also found the relevant leaders of the city and the Municipal Sports Bureau to respond to the situation, and the Sports Bureau also coordinated from it, but soon there was no follow-up. The entire Liangjiang Athletic Club’s expectations for this equity reform and the normal operation of the club are constantly decreasing.
The reason is very simple. The long-term wage arrears and the promises that have never been fulfilled have given the club hope and disappointed them. There has been no trust between them for a long time. Before the first stage of the league entered the competition zone for the second time, the Chongqing Club had a suspension of training due to equity reforms and the unfulfilled wages. In front of the players, a consensus was reached on April 30 as the time dividing line, and an agreement on funding was also reached.
With April 30 as the time division, the Sports Bureau promised that after the team returns from the first stage of the game, the new shareholders will pay the wages after the start of May. Under this premise, the contemporary group first reissued the previous two months’ arrears, and promised to resolve the remaining arrears within one year, and at the same time bear the bonus for the next competition.
In accordance with the agreement, Modern Group paid two months’ salary, the players also successfully entered the competition area, and also confirmed the winning prize during the game. But when the players came back from the game in August, because the share reform had not been completed, the wages of the new shareholders that had been promised before were not implemented either.
The wages after April 30 were borne by the new shareholders, and they have not been honored until now, and Dangdai has not continued to pay the outstanding wages. If this continues, the equity reform cannot be completed, and the Liangjiang Athletic Club will eventually go bankrupt and become the second Jiangsu team. An endless wait has arrived. Liangjiang New District is waiting, and the club is waiting, but no one knows where the problem lies.
For this club, the realistic expectations are already very low. As long as a portion of the funds can enter the club’s accounts and the players can get a part of the salary, it can basically guarantee the operation before December. But at present, the club’s book funds have reached the point of being stretched, and the situation is almost the same as that of the Hebei team in the previous thunderstorm. But the fundamental difference is that the Hebei team has entered the championship group, even if the funding problem causes the game to be in a bad state and lose all the games in the second stage, their ranking will also be eighth. The situation in Chongqing is obviously worse. After falling into the relegation group, if the team’s state is not guaranteed and unfortunately relegated, even if the share reform is completed at the last moment, then what is the point?
The financial difficulties are from the outside to the inside.The first is the cost of participating in the game. The cost of the team’s previous trip to Meizhou to participate in the FA Cup was a private loan of 250,000 from the top of the club. In the head, it is considered as saving as much as possible, otherwise the team will not be able to participate in the FA due to financial problems. Cup.
The situation of the first team is still the same. The situation of the 7 echelons below the club is even worse. The youth training coach has not received a salary for a year. Advanced. Even the new jerseys issued to the echelon recently need to be printed with numbers. This small amount of money is funded by the parents of the children. More than two hundred players in the echelon have not eaten in the club after training. The diet of the first team has been guaranteed. It is the club’s top management who pays to maintain it. The operation of the entire club has been very difficult.
Not long ago, the Hebei team was exposed to the fact that the base was forced to shut down because it owed the water and electricity fees of the base. It was even put on a seal and the employees were on vacation temporarily.The current situation of Chongqing Liangjiang Athletic Club is also very similar. First of all, employees are almost always working online. Except for legal affairs and finance, almost no people can be seen in the office. Secondly, Liangjiang Athletics Club is currently in arrears with water, electricity, ground maintenance fees, and catering suppliers, totaling nearly 2 million yuan. In this process, the club’s senior management has borrowed more than 500,000 yuan from the club, and they have been unable to continue to maintain the club’s subsequent operations.
In addition, the club had to pay for the wrong decision in the 2018 season.There was once an arbitration on the youth training was not executed, and the transfer was banned by the Chinese Football Association along with the other three clubs.
In view of the stagnation of the equity reform, the club has no new funds to enter, and it is obviously impossible to achieve the simultaneous progress of equity reform and the stable operation of the club. In this way, this is not only a fundamental thing that hurts Chongqing football, but also a harm to the overall situation of the club’s equity reform.
The players of Chongqing Liangjiang Athletics, from January to now, have never taken the initiative to strike out due to equity reforms and arrears of wages. The players, coaches and staff have been patient and persistent since last year, in order to help Chongqing keep the Chinese Super League. This platform also helped Chongqing football to leave behind a fire. The situation has taken a turn for the worse, and the club’s funding situation is becoming less and less optimistic. It is beyond everyone’s control. On Saturday, the club is not allowed to inform the first team and all the media that the first team will again be suspended due to severe shortage of operating funds, and the return day is to be determined. This time, the club has reached a desperate situation, and the degree of crisis is unprecedented in history.
What I have to say is that the situation of several foreign aids is not optimistic. Although Bolanos has obtained permission to return to China, he has also made it clear that he will return at least part of his salary; Tursunov has always In the Uzbekistan national team, but because of the severe epidemic in the country, he was unable to come back. Captain Fernandinho returned to Chongqing after the quarantine in Guangzhou on November 9th, and he still needs to be quarantined for another seven days. But after he came out of isolation for seven days, he saw that the club’s situation was worse than when he left, and I don’t know how he would feel.Return to Sohu to see more
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