Reporter Jia Yanfeng reported that "the preparations for the 2022 season came earlier than any other season, and the preparations for the 2022 season began not a few days after all the events in the 2021 season were played." This is a detail mentioned by Shi Qiang, head of the preparatory team of the China Football Federation, when talking about the preparations for the new season.
The CFA Preparatory Group, which began to take over the preparation and management of the three leagues in the 2021 season, will continue to play an important role as a league organizer in the 2022 season. Judging from the current epidemic prevention and control situation, it is quite difficult to restart the league, and even so, the Preparatory Group of the China Football Federation has been resisting the pressure and cooperating closely with the Chinese Football Association to make the final sprint preparations for the start of the league at the end of April.
At present, there are three key points in restarting the league: the format and division arrangement, the access conditions and the solution of the problem of players' wage arrears, and the guarantee of the quality and brand of the league.
Why did preparations for the 2022 season start so early? One of the main reasons is that the CFA preparatory team hopes to vigorously promote the restoration of the league home and away system, so it takes a long time and a lot of manpower to prepare for the design of a reasonable schedule and corresponding emergency response plans, but the final approved plan has to be temporarily shelved due to the sudden changes in the epidemic.
"Although the organization and quality of our entire event in the 2021 season is quite OK under the premise of the tournament system, if we want to really improve the perception and quality of the league, we still need to restore the home and away system, but the home and away system we prepared this time is different from the home and away system in the general sense that everyone has understood in the past, it is a home and away system that is normalized in epidemic prevention and control, and the operating standards of all stadiums must first consider respecting local epidemic prevention policies, so we have only made more than 100 pages of PPT on epidemic prevention planning." In order to be able to obtain the trust and support of local governments, sports bureaus and local football associations, and to do every basic work for the Chinese Super League to smoothly resume the home-and-away system. Shi Qiang, head of the preparatory team of the China Football Federation, particularly emphasized when introducing the format of the new season that doing a good job in epidemic prevention and always putting epidemic prevention work in the first place in the preparation of the league is a key to the preparatory team to promote the restoration of the home and away system. As far as the current situation is concerned, the home-and-away system in the first stage of the new season will certainly not be restored, and the tournament system can only be implemented for the time being.
According to the working principle of the preparatory group, it is generally necessary to determine the Chinese Super League division first, and then determine the Chinese First Division, the Chinese Super League adopted a 34-round format this year, so it is divided into 3 divisions, each division 6 teams, the confirmation of these 3 divisions has now encountered a lot of trouble.
Originally, some divisions were finalized, but with the change of the epidemic situation, some divisions have hesitated, after all, a division has to receive multiple Chinese Super League teams from different regions, coupled with the high requirements of the Chinese Super League home games, which will definitely involve the mobilization of a large number of public safety forces, and also bring huge pressure to the epidemic prevention and control of the entire city. Because of this, both divisions last season have made it clear that they do not want to host this year's events, and it is difficult to say whether there will be a turnaround in the future.
These days, the preparatory team is contacting other cities to host the event, but the comprehensive conditions may be a little different than the mature divisions that have very good experience in hosting the tournaments in the past two seasons. The goal of this negotiation is still to focus on the city that has its own professional team, so the possibility of being accommodated will be higher. Since the plan is to start at the end of the month, the initial determination of the division is scheduled for around the 11th of this month. If the division can be fixed, it means that the league is really about to start.
At this stage, the epidemic prevention and control work is still under great pressure, how to let the teams and personnel with abnormal itinerary codes go out of the city and successfully enter the competition area, it is indeed a big test for all parties, especially the preparatory group of the China Football Federation. As for the conditions for running the competition in the division, I believe that all teams can understand in the current situation, at this time, it is not easy for the league to start smoothly, and others are not so important.
According to this newspaper, among the 18 Chinese Super League clubs in the new season, only 7 are not unpaid, and most of them have different degrees of unpaid wages. After many meetings and comprehensive consideration, the Chinese Football Association issued the latest 2022 league access conditions rules, most of which are for the three-tier leagues, and only a few provisions apply to the Chinese Super League.
The core content of this league access condition rule includes the following aspects and several important time nodes:
First, all wage arrears must be resolved by December 31, 2022; second, if a written agreement can be reached with the wage arrears, it must be filed with the Chinese Football Association before April 8, and if no agreement can be reached, it will be repaid according to the figures stipulated in the original contract; third, the repayment of the arrears of Chinese players is divided into three nodes, namely before July 31, October 30, 2022, before December 31, 2022; fourth, the amount of wage arrears resolved by each node cannot be less than 30% of the total; fifth, If the first time node fails to execute, the club is deducted 3 points, if the second node is not executed, deduct 6 points, and the third node is still not executed, and the direct penalty is demoted.
From this point of view, the Chinese Football Association pays more attention to safeguarding the interests of players than in previous years, giving clubs and investors a lot of pressure. According to Liu Jun, deputy head of the preparatory group of the China Football Federation, the general principle of the access conditions is to accelerate the settlement process of wage arrears under the premise of fully considering the interests of all parties, and at the same time, it is also to enable the Chinese professional league to have a more benign development.
"Not on either side, but also not for any club to easily lie flat on the grounds of financial difficulties. Chinese football can face difficulties together, but does not accept deliberately not keeping promises. This is a summary given by Liu Jun when talking about the principle of access. The solution to wage arrears jointly negotiated by the Chinese Football Association and the China Football Federation is also based on the premise of mapping out the entire wage arrears situation and the club's ability to repay, and is not a subjective and arbitrary act. Previously, it had been considered to require the club to pay off the salaries of low-income players first, but then the comprehensive consideration was left to the club to decide, and the FOOTBALL Association was only responsible for reviewing the evidence of the club's repayment of the arrears and controlling the time node.
Will there be clubs that deliberately underreport and conceal wage arrears? If there is a recorded contract and a lawsuit that already has an arbitration result, this is basically impossible, because the Football Association itself will go to the arbitration commission to retrieve all the case files of disputes arising from wage arrears last year, as a basis for the assessment of the list and amount of wage arrears submitted by the club. "We have announced the time node, if the player does not receive the salary arrears at this point, he can file an arbitration." Once the arbitration determines that the fact of wage arrears exists, the club should return it, otherwise it will incur penalties.
The reason why the Football Association is so tough this time is also to fully consider the quality of the Chinese Super League. If the players are playing with emotions, it is bound to affect the mood and performance of the players, then this will further damage the brand and image of the league, so ensuring the quality of the game is not an empty slogan, but to be defended with practical actions.
The salary arrears are mainly written in the work contract filed with the Chinese Football Association, and the amount that has been clearly decided, as for some bonuses or other forms of endorsement contracts, as long as they are not stated in the work contract, the amount will not be included in the assessment.
On March 2, according to the latest documents released by the General Administration of Sports, the General Administration of Sport and the Ministry of Public Security will strictly investigate illegal and disciplinary acts such as match-fixing, and make recommendations that if there is a match-fixing incident in professional leagues and international competitions, it will be investigated to the end, and if similar problems occur in professional leagues, the league organization, its professional clubs and directly responsible managers will be punished, and if there is a match-fixing in international competitions, the parties will face a lifetime ban.
Strict prevention of fake gambling is also a key point for the preparatory team of the China Football Federation to prepare for the new season. With the sharp reduction of wages in recent years, while some clubs still have serious wage arrears, this time in theory is the time when fake gambling black is most likely to corrode the football circle, because of this, the Chinese Football Association on the one hand to clean up the arrears of wages, but also do not forget to cooperate with the public security department, the necessary supervision of the situation of the event, for some strange performance will be checked to the end, "The level of the Chinese league may not be high, but the purity of the league must be guaranteed." ”
In addition, the current league is also facing a major problem, that is, the identity of the players. This year, the number of people who are willing to invest in the number of clubs has been lifted, so it is inevitable that many players will float in the hearts and minds of many players, hoping to join the new team through the form of litigation termination, but the current ruling has not been officially made, so how to define the identity of this part of the players? This is a new problem.
For the Chinese Super League in the new season, there is no advance preparation for any special compression of the schedule for any event, unless there are special circumstances that may be adjusted, but the Chinese Super League in the 2022 season strives to play 34 rounds of the league to the greatest extent, unless the impact of the epidemic is really not allowed, it will consider compressing the schedule.