The Chinese Football Association has focused on solving the problem of wage arrears, and FIFA has also made a contribution...

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According to the requirements of the Chinese Football Association, April 8 is the deadline for the Chinese Super League and China League A clubs to submit confirmation letters. Before the arrival of this day, Hebei Football Club, which is regarded as a "difficult household to participate in the competition", posted on the official social media, saying that "when Langfang lifts the closed management and resumes the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, the Hebei team will assemble at the Niutuo base to start the team's journey for the 2022 season." "Although the road ahead is still difficult, it is good news for Hebei and even the entire Chinese Super League.

The core essence of this article published by the official social media of Hebei Football Club is that despite the difficulties, the Hebei team has never given up, and the team is about to assemble, and will overcome many difficulties and start the journey of the Chinese Super League in the new season under the care and support of leaders at all levels and the majority of fans. At this time, Hebei Football Club showed its firm attitude of participating in the Chinese Super League, and according to domestic media reports, the parent company Huaxia Happiness will continue to operate Hebei Football Club.

Time back to the beginning of 2021, when, in response to the Chinese Football Association's request for neutralization of club names, Hebei Huaxia Happiness Football Club was renamed Hebei Football Club, while the parent company Huaxia Happiness was deeply involved in a debt crisis, and the three red lines were stepped on. At that time, Tangshan City made substantial contact with the Hebei team on the introduction of Chinese Super League teams, and cooperated with local governments with relatively strong economic strength and strong willingness to develop football, which was regarded as a feasible path for Hebei clubs to seek a way to survive.

However, with the passage of time, the relocation of the Hebei team to Tangshan disappeared. Under the leadership of the club's general manager Li Jun, the Hebei team began to "sell blood to survive", Mal Kang, Ren Hang, Zhao Yuhao and a number of other main players in the team have transferred, during the second transfer, the little Paulinho joined Shanghai Harbor, and brought a valuable cash flow to the Hebei team. Under the predicament, under the leadership of Korean coach Kim Jong-fu, Hebei team played a record of 6 wins, 5 draws and 3 losses in the first stage, and entered the Chinese Super League championship group as the fourth place in the Suzhou Division.

The fighting power of the Hebei team is amazing, and the whole team wants to promote the stock reform by achieving good results, continue the life of the club, and make a living for itself. However, the progress of stock reform has been very slow. It has been reported that the relevant departments at the higher level have allocated 10 million yuan of special funds for football to the Langfang Municipal Sports Bureau for the development of Langfang football. As the only top professional club in Langfang, Hebei Football Club, whose youth training is also rooted in Langfang, has repeatedly applied for this fund from the Langfang Municipal Sports Bureau without success, which has made the club once full of pessimism about the stock reform.

Since then, the situation of the Hebei team has taken a sharp turn for the worse, and in the FA Cup match last October, the Hebei team played with the travel expenses of the coaching team members out of their own pockets. On October 26 last year, they announced through official channels that the club's first team members were suspended from work and leave. Only 2 days later, it was officially announced that due to the inability to pay the electricity bill on time, the club's 4 echelons also began to take a holiday. In this process, the first-team staff have collectively signed and issued an open letter, expressing their willingness to work for the club free of charge until the end of the season to promote the club's stock reform.

In the unfavorable situation of serious salary arrears and bleak prospects, Kim Jong-fu and the coaching team members made great efforts to lead the Hebei team to complete the second stage of the game, and li Jun, the general manager of the club, advanced more than 2 million yuan, and everyone had only one goal, that is, to hope that the club could survive. At the end of the season, the situation of hebei team did not improve, the main players continued to lose, Zhang Chengdong and Memisevic transferred successively. However, after a large number of players transferred out and the sharp reduction of the club's operation team, the operating costs of Hebei Club have dropped significantly, and in theory, the cost of the team's survival has also been greatly reduced. However, on 8 February, the club officially announced that the winter training work that the first team had planned to carry out was postponed for some reason. When the Chinese Super League teams have successively carried out preparations for the new season, only the Hebei team has not seen any movement, and domestic media reports have said that the crisis of the Hebei team is intensifying, and there is a risk of withdrawing from the Chinese Super League.

On April 7, an official announcement from the Hebei Club made everyone temporarily take a reassuring pill. "Thanks to the leaders of the Sports Bureau of Hebei Province, the leaders of the Hebei Football Association, the relevant leaders of Langfang City, and the leaders of the Langfang Football Association for their great support for the work of the club, and more importantly, I would like to thank the leaders of Huaxia Happiness Group for their attention to the development of the club and their care for the coaches, players and staff." Such a statement seems to indicate that the share reform has finally made new progress under the impetus of all parties. On April 1, Huaxia Happiness released the latest progress of debt restructuring, and the company has achieved a total debt restructuring amount of 104.812 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 50% of the total debt of Huaxia Happiness, which is also interpreted by the capital market as a major positive for Huaxia Happiness.

However, for Hebei Football Club, it is only the first step of "reviving the dead", and there are still many difficulties in front of the club. With only one month left before the start of the new season, under the epidemic, the Hebei team must find ways to assemble as soon as possible and make up for the lessons left behind under the leadership of head coach Kim Jong-fu. The first team should reorganize and integrate the personnel in the team, even if it is determined to use the idea of U25 players to play the new season, but also to carry out the necessary reinforcement work in combination with the actual situation, the Transfer Window of the Chinese Super League will be closed in a week, leaving Hebei with very limited time to operate. The most critical point is that while the Hebei team submits the confirmation letter of participation, it also means that within the three time nodes set by the Football Association, it is necessary to gradually pay off the unpaid wages until the end of 2022 to solve the problem of unpaid wages, which is the premise for the Hebei team to continue to live.

Looking at the Chinese Super League, there are not a few teams with "limited access" like Hebei, and before the season approaches, some clubs have wage arrears and reports of some players asking for salaries have begun to increase. According to the latest report on FIFA's official website, the FIFA Football Players Fund, which aims to help players who are not paid and have no opportunity to receive salaries agreed with the club, received a total of 142 applications from 39 clubs in 22 member associations during the second window period (July-December 2020), approved 140 copies, and issued a total of $4 million. Among them, the Chinese side submitted a total of 3 applications, ranking among the top 10 in the world, ranking first in the AFC, and received 98,000 US dollars (about 623,000 yuan) of funding from the FIFA Football Players Foundation.

At present, FIFA has opened the funding application page for players from all over the world in the third window period (2021) and the fourth window period (2022), and perhaps more applications from China will follow.

Speaking of Hebei, it is a highly valuable sample of China's professional football from the difficult transformation of Jinyuan football led by real estate enterprises. Its various problems, other professional clubs more or less also exist, but what is valuable is that the Hebei team stubbornly insisted and survived. "The Chinese Super League in 2022 is destined to be the most difficult season that Hebei will experience." Hebei Football Club wrote on official social media. In fact, not only Hebei team, but also many teams similar to this team will face tests in the new season. Only when they work hard to carry through the 2022 season can the Chinese Super League maintain the basic plate, and the deepening reform of Chinese football can continue to develop in depth.