During the 2022 Chinese football transfer season, Shenhua received a ticket from FIFA – banned from registering new players worldwide. Along with Shenhua, Qingdao and Beijing Beiti University were banned.
Why did Shenhua suddenly receive such a ticket? This is related to flores, a Spanish head coach who became the head coach of Shenhua on December 25, 2018. Flores led the team to poor results after taking over Shenhua, winning only 3 of 15 games, and a wave of embarrassing records of not winning in 9 consecutive rounds has caused the team to fall into the relegation zone. On July 3, 2019, Shenhua issued an official announcement that Flores resigned as head coach to Shenhua for personal reasons. Subsequently, Cui Kangxi took over the Shenhua coaching whip, led the team out of the predicament, completed the league relegation task at the same time, defeated Shandong Taishan in the FA Cup to win the FA Cup.
After leaving Shenhua, Flores sued FIFA. When Shenhua signed a two-year contract with him, Flores believed that Shenhua still needed to pay him wages, liquidated damages, etc. In February 2020, FIFA ordered Shenhua to pay Flores wages, liquidated damages and interest, as well as FIFA fines totaling nearly 13 million euros (about 100 million yuan). In May of the same year, Shenhua appealed to the International Court of Arbitration for Sport. In March 2021, the International Court of Arbitration for Sport issued its final ruling. On May 17 of the same year, FIFA issued a judgment to Shenhua that if Shenhua still refused to implement the judgment of FIFA and the International Court of Arbitration for Sport within 30 days, it would be subject to a series of penalties including but not limited to the prohibition of transfer operations. Nearly a year later, FIFA issued a ban on Shenhua from registering new players.