Reporter Lu Mi reported on the Chinese Super League and the Chinese football environment in 2021, experiencing too many twists and turns and ups and downs. The residual situation left after the retreat of Jinyuan football has brought indelible pain to many clubs. The dissolution of the Jiangsu team sounded the alarm bell, although there is a Jinmen Tiger "resurrection from the dead", but under the triple pressure of the frequent operational crises of the parent company of the real estate investors, the inability of the league to restore the home and away system under the background of the epidemic, and the league being forced to cut in the context of the national team's top 12 matches, the Chinese Super League has entered an unprecedented low.
Equity reform seems to be the road of hope, but everyone is groping forward, and investors and local governments are waiting for the most authoritative guiding opinions to be issued. We look back on the five major events of the 2021 season of the league to remember and reflect.
In 2020, the special competition format under the epidemic achieved a historic moment in Jiangsu football, and Jiangsu team won the 2020 Chinese Super League championship. Shortly after winning the championship, the club's operations were repeatedly thunderous, and finally the new branch champion completely disappeared from the map of Chinese football in the spring of 2021. In the vast jiangsu province, there is no longer a Chinese Super League team.
Jiangsu Suning is a new giant team that has risen after Guangzhou Evergrande and Shanghai SIPG, and once introduced super foreign aides such as Ramirez and Teixeira in the Golden Yuan football period. More invited Capello, Choi Long-so and other top coaches in the world and Asia to coach. At the same time, Suning Group also controls world-class clubs such as Inter Milan.
For a long time before winning the championship, the first team of jiangsu team was plagued by unpaid wages. Because of the huge loss of the parent company, the operation of the Jiangsu team has been in crisis, and the Jiangsu provincial government took a series of measures to help Suning Group tide over the difficulties at the first time, but the debt at that time was too much and difficult. It is not that the enterprises in the province have not contacted the football club, but because the solution of the relevant debt cannot be agreed, the Jiangsu team eventually went to dissolution.
In the post-Jiangsu team era, the relevant departments of Jiangsu Province have wanted to support the rise of other football clubs in the province in the future, targeting Suzhou Dongwu and Kunshan FC, but each club has different problems, including Taizhou Yuanda, many low-level teams, have not escaped this disaster. Shortly after the dissolution of the Jiangsu team, Taizhou Yuanda of the Chinese League one also came to the end of disbandment after failing to seek transfer.
Within a year, Jiangsu Province lost two professional teams, not only the loss of Jiangsu Province, but also the pain of professional football in China as a whole. As early as 2020, including Tianjin Tianhai, a total of 22 teams in the three-tier league were disbanded, although the number of disbanded teams at the beginning of this year did not exceed last year, but because of the "disappearance" of the champion Suning team, it was undoubtedly a heavy blow to Chinese football.
At the beginning of this year, the survival of two teams in the Chinese Super League occupied the headlines in the circle almost every day. One team is the New Branch Champion Jiangsu Team of last year's league, and the other team is Tianjin Teda Club, which was last year's thrilling relegation.
Since June last year, TEDA Holdings has sought help from the relevant departments in Tianjin, including the transfer of the club. At the same time, the club began to owe wages for a long time from the beginning of last year, and by the end of last year, TEDA was successfully relegated, and the club's debts, including the international lawsuits it was burdened with, had reached a point where it could not be borne.
The Tianjin Municipal Government rescued TEDA Holdings for the first time, and this football club has been going back and forth between trade-offs.
The Chinese Football Association has repeatedly postponed the release of access, and the football club has been given time to save itself. At the last moment, with the help of government departments, Tianjin Jinmen Tiger was established, and TEDA Holdings completely withdrew from the Chinese football stage. Although the handover time is very short, the club's equity is too late to change, but the actual operation and source of funds have no relationship with TEDA, and the club is bound to carry out equity reform.
TEDA Holdings has set up a branch to deal with hundreds of millions of yuan of debt left over from history, and the new club will seek new shareholders in Tianjin with zero debt, and this reform will be carried out after the team's relegation task is completed this year. At present, the relevant departments of Tianjin Municipality are seeking enterprises to participate in the operation of this club in the future of the whole city.
Jinmen Tigers, after undergoing restructuring, continue to grope and mature in the league, and they are also working hard for this new life and for a better future.
The 2020 season of the league is the first time that the Chinese Super League has been launched in the epidemic environment, and the league will officially start in the second half of the year. All Chinese Super League teams, as well as foreign aid and foreign coaches, are experiencing the cruelty of this special format for the first time. Coupled with the overall depression of the Chinese league environment, the problem of wage arrears has been repeatedly prohibited, the Golden Dollar football era has officially ended, and big-name foreign aid and foreign teachers have left one after another, resulting in many teams in the 2021 season, even ordinary foreign aid lineups are difficult to get together.
At the beginning of 2021, many foreign aides terminated their contracts with the club in advance because of the problem of returning to China to continue to close the schedule. For example, Dalian's Long Dong and Hamsik, Deep Foot Club's Preciado and Diego Sousa... The first wave of terminations at the beginning of the year, coupled with some foreign aid who did not get visas to China in time, made this year's Chinese Super League lack sufficient attraction at the beginning.
As the league progressed, successive intermittent periods, as well as different degrees of wage arrears of various clubs, have not been resolved, and when the second transfer period arrives, the foreign aid of the Chinese Super League is lost again. Guangzhou lost the last foreign player Paulinho, and before that, Talisca also left on his own. After the European Championship, there are foreign internationals who transfer directly on the spot, such as The Harbour's top scorer Arnautovic and Guangzhou City's Svenson. Beijing Guoan walked away with Kim Hyun-jae, Augusto, Vieira and Fernando in one fell swoop this summer, and the current team only has anderson as a foreign aid.
In the relegation team, the foreign aid is relatively neat, and only Henan team and Shanghai Shenhua team are left. Wuhan team's Mbia, Caliso, Baptistang all left freely, Cangzhou lion Muric and Akhmedov left...
Nowadays, whether it is the championship group or the relegation group, there are teams playing in the all-Chinese class. Guangzhou team sent away all its foreign aid this year because of operational problems, and after the World Preliminary Tournament, the club still did not resume normal operations, and naturalized players have left China. Gaulat is the first naturalized player to leave, as well as Fernando, who left early, and then Alain, Axon and Luo Guofu, who are likely to play in foreign leagues as Chinese internationals in the future, and it is still unknown whether they will return to their original nationality.
There is no doubt that the third wave of foreign aid departures will come after the end of the league.
At the beginning of this year, the club's equity reform officially became the new theme of the Chinese Super League, and the stock reform became the survival threshold that all clubs had to face.
Shandong Taishan was the first to complete the share reform, and they quickly entered a stable stage of development and won the Chinese Super League championship in advance this year. Followed by Henan Jianye, Jianye Group took advantage of the trend of neutral name reform to follow the trend and clearly divide the club's equity with the governments of Zhengzhou and Luoyang.
Last season's Shijiazhuang Yongchang Club completed the equity reform in Cangzhou City at the beginning of this year, completed the change of neutral name and relocated to Cangzhou City. These clubs that have completed equity reform have become an important reference for clubs that now need share reform and are on the road to share reform.
However, the process of share reform of various clubs is different, and the problems encountered after the completion of equity reform are not the same. For example, after the equity reform, how to solve the problems left over from history, the allocation of funds between shareholders, the more detailed rights and responsibilities, and the management problems within the club all require time and experience to explore.
There are many more clubs that have only just begun equity reform, such as Chongqing Liangjiang Athletic, which has just reached a unified opinion with all parties in the equity; the Guangzhou team has just found the Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group that intends to take over the club. Tianjin Jinmen Tiger and Hebei team are still further looking for companies that are interested in taking over.
At present, the equity reform of Chinese Super League clubs is almost all led by local governments, and clubs cooperate to promote it. Due to the different problems faced, the reform process is also different, and the successful reform clubs have also had different problems in the post-share reform era, all of which stem from the lack of experience in the share reform for the club and the local government. If we really want to achieve the ultimate goal in the "Foot Reform Plan", the higher-level departments should issue corresponding guiding opinions in the future.
The boom in real estate investment in football has cooled down completely. Relevant data show that this year is the most stringent and intensive year of real estate regulation, and the financial problems of the parent company real estate enterprises behind many Chinese Super League clubs have occurred. In the media alone, there are Guangzhou Evergrande, Guangzhou R&F, Shenzhen Kaisa, and earlier Huaxia Happiness, and even Shanghai Greenland.
Since last year, many teams with real estate companies as the parent company have suffered from unpaid wages. Hebei can't even pay for daily operations, and Guangzhou can only be spontaneously assembled by players before the start of the second stage of the season.
In the era of Jinyuan football, the Chinese Super League was basically monopolized by real estate companies. Evergrande, Wanda, Huaxia Happiness, Wuhan Zall, Jianye, R&F, Greenland, etc., and many other businesses are also involved in real estate, and most of these clubs have participated in the Golden Dollar Football Era.
In the market at that time, only real estate companies could invest so recklessly, and the losses caused by investment in football were obvious, but the advertising effect brought by entering the football to housing enterprises was also unprecedented.
However, the new regulations on "three red lines" financing have a greater impact on housing enterprises, and on the list of three red lines of listed housing enterprises released this year, Huaxia Happiness, Evergrande Group, Greenland Group and R&F Group are all on the list. In the context of the one-size-fits-all reform of Chinese football neutrality, the last "income" of investing in football has been lost, and in the case of the parent company being in a deep dilemma, the funds only invested in the football industry that cannot be produced will naturally become the first "non-performing assets" to be abandoned.
Seeking a transfer or an equity reform is one of the few options ahead of the club, who will need to get through the winter when next spring arrives.