After a truce of nearly four months, the second stage of the Chinese Super League officially restarted on December 12. On the 12th, the relegation group competition will take the lead in the Suzhou Division. On the 13th, it was the beginning of the championship battle in Guangzhou.
In the past few months, many clubs have had a hard time. Fortunately, these teams still entered the division as promised, and the integrity of the Chinese Super League was preserved this year. However, both in the title-contending and relegation groups, there are clubs facing survival problems. Next year's league, where they will go, is now a question mark.
The championship group did not have a good life
Generally speaking, the team that can enter the championship group is relatively strong overall, and the investment of the club is relatively stable. However, such an equal sign does not apply to the Chinese Super League. Last season, Jiangsu Suning finally withdrew after winning the championship. This season, there are still teams in the championship group that are worried about survival.
In the first stage of the league, Shandong Taishan and Guangzhou in Group A scored 33 and 30 points, and Shanghai Harbor and Changchun Yatai in Group B both had 28 points. In terms of points, these four teams are the closest to the championship of the total points. Among these four teams, the current situation of Guangzhou team is very unclear. This week, Guangzhou's fireline announced That Zheng Zhi as the team's executive head coach, which finally confirmed that the team could successfully participate in the second stage of the game. Just before, affected by the difficulties of the parent company's operation, the Guangzhou team has not officially resumed training, and most of the players have only trained spontaneously under the leadership of Zheng Zhi, without any logistical guarantees. Even if it is confirmed that it can participate, the situation of the Guangzhou team itself does not show any signs of improvement. At present, the naturalized players in the team, Gaulat, Alain and Axon have left the team, and it is unknown whether Luo Guofu and Jiang Guangtai can participate. As for how the Guangzhou team will survive next season, it is a question mark.
In addition to the Guangzhou team, the Hebei team in the championship group is also facing the crisis of withdrawal. As the dark horse of this season, hebei team has struggled in the first stage. Subsequently, the team participated in the FA Cup by relying on the tour leader, coach and other travel expenses, but after the FA Cup was out, the team's second-stage league, the overall preparation of the Hebei team was deadlocked. After repeated tug-of-war, the team had to carry out corresponding self-help actions, and all employees expressed their willingness to work free of charge before the club completed the equity reform. In this case, Hebei's current goal is to strive to play the rest of the season at the lowest cost.
Relegation groups are harder
Compared with the championship group, there are more teams in the relegation group with difficulties. According to public information, as of now, among the 16 teams in the Chinese Super League in the 2021 season, there are as many as 11 clubs that have defaulted on wages. Among them, in the relegation group, Chongqing Liangjiang Athletic Team and Qingdao Team owe more than 8 months of wages, Wuhan Team has only paid 3 months of salary this year, and Cangzhou Lions have been in arrears for about 6 months.
Because of the long-term arrears of wages, the Chongqing team and the Qingdao team have both stopped training in the preparation process of the second stage. Among them, the Chongqing team, because of the impasse in the reform of the club's shareholding system, they had been training for a while in mid-November. On December 5, the team's share reform problem finally made progress, and the share reform team jointly established by the Chongqing Municipal Government, Liangjiang New District, the Municipal Sports Bureau, the Football Association and other departments officially entered the club, participated in daily work, and promised to advance a part of the funds as the operating expenses of the club, and the salary borne by the new owner from May that was previously promised will also be made up within this month. In the end, the Chongqing team officially resumed training and temporarily survived the retirement crisis.
The problem of the Qingdao team is even more serious. On December 7, the Qingdao team, which was training in Shanghai, held a meeting, at which a number of team representatives said that if the problem of the team's salary arrears is not solved, the whole team will not be stationed in the Suzhou division. Among them, some of the foreign aid participants were very emotional and left in the middle of the meeting. Although in the end, the Qingdao team was still stationed in the competition area as promised, but the overall situation of the team was still not good, and it was very difficult to promote the share reform plan proposed by the club and relevant departments.
The pressure to survive is greater than the pressure to achieve results
This year's Chinese Super League does not have a direct relegation quota, the last two can also play play-offs with the third and fourth places in the Chinese First Division, even if they lose the play-off relegation, they can also count on "resurrection". Therefore, strictly speaking, the relegation pressure of this year's relegation group is very small.
But that doesn't mean the clubs are getting better off. From the championship group to the relegation group, there are clubs facing difficulties, and for the First Time in the Chinese Super League, there is a situation where the pressure of survival is greater than the pressure of performance.
In the past two years, the top league has seen the tianjin tianhai team can not complete the entry and Jiangsu team withdrawal situation, considering that many teams are facing economic crisis now, next year's league may still have a team can not enter the situation. Over the past few months, a number of clubs have struggled to pursue equity reform to save the club. Last season, clubs such as Shandong Taishan and Henan Songshan Longmen completed equity reform. From the actual effect, the Taishan team is overly stable, while the Songshan Longmen team has experienced twists and turns, which to some extent also reflects that the equity reform cannot completely solve the problem. In the final analysis, the essence of equity reform is to hope that local management departments can intervene or help club operations, but how to intervene or how to help, this scale is not clearly mentioned.
The future of the Chinese Super League still has too much uncertainty.
Source Beijing News Sports | Reporter Li Li
Edited by Li Li
Process Editor Wu Yue