As the tide of "golden dollar football" quickly recedes, some of the problems that were previously covered up in the Chinese professional football league have begun to surface, if the Chinese Super League clubs that encounter financial difficulties can also take forced salary cuts, clean up high-paid players and other ways to barely operate at "ultra-low cost", then the situation of low-level league clubs is worrying. At present, a total of 4 clubs from the Chinese First Division and the Chinese Second Division have withdrawn from the new season of the professional league, namely Guizhou Football Club and Qingdao Football Club from the Chinese First Division, and Xiamen Ludao Football Club and Sichuan Minzu Football Club from the Chinese Second Division.
Just recently, Cao Tianbao, a former international footballer who has just stepped down from the coaching position of the Sichuan civil football team, exposed himself in an interview with the media that his Sichuan civil football team was owed three or four million wages overall, and he himself was owed 7 months of wages, a total of 280,000 yuan, and when introducing the overall situation of the current Chinese Second Division, his words were chilling, "The current Chinese Second Division players, with a monthly salary of three thousand, five thousand, eight thousand, ten thousand, twelve thousand, basically ten thousand is a high salary. I can't ask for the players, the training can't meet the requirements, I said you're not in good shape today, you have to give your all. The players will also think in their hearts, I can't get the money, I can't support my family, how to go all out. ”
Speaking of Cao Tianbao, Tianjin fans must not be unfamiliar, in addition to the fact that he is a member of the "super platinum generation" coached by Shen Xiangfu, more importantly, in the player era, Cao Tianbao was once known as the "Tianjin nemesis", because he scored a total of 17 Chinese Super League goals in his career, 4 of which were scored by Tianjin team, and the first goal was his debut goal in the Chinese Super League. In an interview, Cao Tianbao also seemed to be very popular with the title of "Tianjin nemesis", and he once admitted that the most impressive game in his career was changchun Yatai home against Tianjin in 2009, "At that time, there were 7 internationals in the Tianjin team, and I was the only one on Yatai's side. In a one-on-seven situation, I scored the only goal and Yatai won 1-0. ”
However, like most local strikers, cao Tianbao's living space is getting smaller and smaller under the reality of the increasing level of foreign aid in Chinese professional football leagues. After the end of the 2014 season, Cao Tianbao left Changchun Yatai and played in Meizhou Hakka, Shenzhen Phoenix, Chengdu Qianbao, Chengdu Xingcheng, Sichuan Minzu and other teams, in order to continue his football career, he played all the way from the Chinese Super League to the Chinese Champions League. However, in the lower leagues, Cao Tianbao found the joy of playing football - in the 2018 season, he played for Chengdu Xingcheng and won the top scorer of the Chinese Championship with 10 goals, helping Chengdu Xingcheng successfully break through the second division as the runner-up of the Chinese Championship. Interestingly, Cao Tianbao has won the Chinese Super League championship in Changchun Yatai, the Chinese First Division championship in Guangzhou R&F (he was loaned to R&F for a year during his time at Yatai), and the Chinese Second Division championship in Meizhou Hakka, only one chinese championship is missing, and you can gather the champions of various levels of Chinese football leagues.
In the 2021 season, Cao Tianbao joined the Sichuan Minzu Football Team, a new army in the Chinese Second Division, but the 39-year-old is more of a passing role in the team. With the continuous changes in the trend of Sichuan Minzu in the middle B, Cao Tianbao has also been given the burden of head coach. In the end, Cao Tianbao led the team to 5th place in relegated Group A and 17th in the overall ranking of Central B, successfully relegated. However, as Cao Tianbao said, the salary arrears in the Sichuan civil football team are serious, and there are reports that the team only paid two months' salary last season when the Chinese Second League was halfway through, although the club repeatedly promised to pay back the salary, but it has never been fulfilled. In the end, the Sichuan Minzu, which failed to complete the access, still could not escape the fate of disbanding.
It is worth mentioning that in recent years, the farce of the dissolution of Sichuan football has been staged continuously, before there were Sichuan FC, Sichuan Hengyao, and now there are Sichuan Minzu, but in fact, these three clubs are inextricably linked: Sichuan FC (formerly Sichuan Annapurna) once created a myth of unbeaten in the whole season in the Chinese Second Division, and won a place in the Chinese First Division, but after a season in the Chinese First Division, it was disbanded just after changing its name to Sichuan FC. After the dissolution of Sichuan FC, some personnel formed Sichuan Hengyao and prepared to start over, but the club was dissolved less than a year later. Later, the Sichuan Minzu Football Team with Sichuan Hengyao as the team came into being, and played from the Central Champions League to the Chinese Second League, but now the Sichuan Minfo Football Team is less than two years old and "died prematurely". Of course, in addition to explaining the difficult living environment of the Chinese professional football league, it also shows from another aspect that in the Chinese league, especially in the low-level league, it is difficult for some investors to invest in football and persevere, and their corporate strength and investment motivation are difficult to withstand the test of time.
In fact, the situation of the Sichuan people's foot is a relatively common phenomenon in the middle B. In September last year, Shanxi Longjin coach Zhou Lin revealed in an interview that the monthly salary of shanxi Longjin team 15,000 is the maximum salary, and only 3 people in the whole team can get the maximum salary, and the remaining players have a monthly salary of between 8,000 and 10,000, but this salary is also linked to the performance, "I can feel that the crisis brought by the environment, the players are really too difficult to find a job, don't talk about whether it is a good job, having a job is quite good." As far as I am concerned, I feel that the salaries of our players are now on par with ordinary people, just looking at the total amount, it is not clear that it is the income of professional players, just like the average office worker. But it's all based on the premise that our team can always exist and the players can play and not get hurt, in order to get money. ”
As the Chinese football market and employment environment become more and more severe, the Chinese Super League players bid farewell to a good day of spending thousands of dollars, but in fact, compared with them, the situation is more miserable is more low-level league players, and even in the lowest leagues, players suffer from unpaid wages, and even the basic economic resources are difficult to guarantee. Obviously, the drastic changes in the chinese football environment have hurt them more directly and deeply.
Although competitive sports is ultimately "survival of the fittest", these players originally invested so much energy and money in order to embark on a career path, and finally ushered in the industry's trough and even winter, as well as the existential crisis brought about by the chain reaction. "If you don't kick, go do something else", although this sentence is easy to say, but are they really willing? Now, these players at the bottom of Chinese professional football can only wait patiently, hoping that the situation will improve and see the hope for the future. However, in the face of such a cruel reality, how long can they hold on to their original intention and love for football?