Reporter Cheng Shan reported that the 2022 version of the "Financial Agreement Indicators for Chinese Super League Clubs" will be released soon, and the Chinese Football Association has issued similar documents twice before to limit the salary of players, but this time the salary limit order has pressed the maximum salary of players to a record low, which can be said to be the most stringent salary limit. According to the information obtained by this newspaper, the salary limit stipulates that the maximum salary of Chinese players is 3 million yuan before tax, and the salary of foreign aid cannot exceed 2 million euros before tax. The total annual investment of Chinese Super League clubs is capped at 300 million.
On November 20, 2019, the Chinese Football Association suddenly issued an urgent document, which notified that "all Chinese Super League clubs, Chinese League A clubs and Chinese Second Division clubs have suspended signing individual work contracts with domestic players, including but not limited to initials agreements, new contracts and contract renewals." The suspension of signing individual work contracts is for domestic players in the first team and reserve team of professional clubs. ”
Subsequently, on December 26, the Chinese Football Association issued the first "salary restriction order" - the financial agreement of the Chinese Super League, which involves the salary of players, and the contract signed by domestic players after November 20, 2019 is a new contract, the pre-tax maximum salary does not exceed 10 million yuan, and the players selected for the national team are 20%. Foreign players who sign a contract after January 1, 2020 are new contracts, and the newly signed salary must not exceed 3 million euros after tax.
On December 24, 2020, the second financial agreed indicators and the content containing further salary limits came again, the document is the "Notice on the Release of Financial Agreed Indicators for Chinese Super League Clubs in the 2021-2023 Season", which has reduced the pre-tax maximum salary of the first-team teams of the Chinese Super League from 10 million to 5 million yuan, and there is no special preferential treatment for international footballers.
However, at that time, the "Notice" mentioned that players could sign contracts with clubs for the economic value of third parties, but this needed to be approved by the Chinese Football Association or the authorized agency of the Chinese Football Association before signing, that is, it must be declared in advance, and if there is no advance declaration, this part of the income will be included in the total salary of the players. Once a player's salary exceeds the standard, he will be punished with a maximum ban of 24 months. The salary of foreign aid has changed from a maximum of 3 million euros after tax to a maximum of 3 million euros before tax, and the total income of a single season shall not exceed 10 million euros before tax.
The upcoming new version of the salary restriction order, involving the player's salary part, the salary of Chinese players has been further reduced, 5 million yuan before tax to 3 million yuan before tax; the salary of foreign aid has also been further reduced from 3 million euros before tax to 2 million euros before tax. However, as to whether third-party contracts with economic value still exist, this newspaper has not yet obtained the most accurate information, and it should continue to exist in terms of the overall situation. However, the implementation standards and audit standards will certainly be more stringent.
Before the promulgation of the 2020 salary limit version, the relevant parties planned to directly reduce the salary to 2 million before tax, but this plan was opposed by many clubs, because the huge salary gap can certainly allow the club to reduce expenditure, but it is also extremely serious for the psychological and emotional blow of the players, and the club investors prefer to adjust the unreasonable salary treatment generated during the Golden Dollar Football period in a slow-down manner, rather than directly cutting the waist, to a sharp brake. If you want to know that things must be reversed, resulting in players not having a normal mentality to play, in fact, the loss is the same as the club.
The most important thing for many players is whether they will be required to re-sign the work contract, and will the latest salary restriction cycle be from the date of the issuance of the document or from January 1, 2022? These will not be known until the documents are published. Because the time frame covered by the first two documents related to salary limits is not regular, the first is calculated from November 20, 2019, and the second is from January 1, 2021. So when this time will be counted, it is really unpredictable.
Salary caps are imperative, but can salary caps fundamentally solve the problems of clubs? Obviously, it is impossible to do it once and for all. In reality, further salary caps may be a way to throttle back, but Chinese football clearly needs more than just throttling, but also open source.
Although clubs are counting on share reform, how to make more high-quality enterprises willing to stay in the football circle and help Chinese football develop in the long run still requires football management to use their brains. For example, once the home and away games are restored, or the home and away games cannot be restored, what should business development do? Whether it can give clubs more independent business development and management rights, and provide more space for clubs to create economic value by virtue of their own geographical strength.
The national team did not play well, which has an impact on the image of Chinese football as a whole, which also means that the future work management will also shoulder the task of reshaping the image of football and the image of the league. It's certainly not just salary caps that will solve the problem.
In addition, for the third-party endorsement of players exceeding the annual salary limit or the review of relevant contracts with economic value, if the Chinese Football Association wants to have universal fairness, then the salary limit document should be determined at the same time as the review standard and the audit body, if you really want to limit the salary structure, you should not leave any hidden dangers that may cause differences or disputes in the rules.
In the case of a sharp reduction in the annual salary ceiling of foreign aid and local players, the annual investment ceiling of Chinese Super League teams has also reached a record low, and in December 2020, the annual expenditure of Chinese Super League clubs should not exceed 600 million yuan, including youth training fees and women's football expenses. In this year's new regulations, the investment ceiling of the Chinese Super League club has reached 300 million yuan, which can make them relax for the major clubs in the arrears of wages, and also allow the investors of state-owned enterprises waiting for the stock reform to enter to reduce the investment pressure.