In the middle of this week, the Chinese Football Association issued the "Notice on the Registration, Transfer and Registration of Players in the 2024 National Senior Women's Football League" through official channels, confirming the adjustment of player registration and transfer policies for the National Senior Women's Football League (Women's Super League, Women's A, Women's B) in the new season, that is, limiting the number of women's football internationals introduced and registered by each club, and clarifying that the number of foreign players in each club team will be linked to whether the club sends foreign players. It is understood that the Chinese Football Association has also simultaneously launched the "investment cap" and "salary cap (including bonus)" policy of women's football clubs, stipulating that the total annual investment of each women's super league and women's league club shall not exceed 30 million yuan, and the player's personal annual income (including bonuses) shall not exceed 1.2 million yuan before tax and not less than 60,000 yuan before tax.
A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily learned that the Chinese Football Association hopes to further optimize the competitive environment of domestic women's football by breaking the monopoly of high-quality women's football talents by clubs that are not bad for money, and at the same time encourage more outstanding female football players with outstanding ability or development potential to step out of their comfort zone and embark on the journey of staying abroad. To this end, the Chinese Football Association has also launched an "overseas support fee" policy, which divides players according to the quality of the league they stay in, the ranking of the teams they join and the appearance rate of players who stay abroad, and gives them subsidies.
In recent seasons, women's football internationals have been concentrated in a few clubs with relatively superior economic conditions, such as Wuhan. Taking last year's Women's World Cup, Hangzhou Asian Games Women's Football Tournament and Paris Olympic Preliminary Tournament Chinese Women's Football Training List Personnel Recruitment as an example, the Chinese Football Association announced on May 18 last year that among the 26 people selected for the 9th Women's World Cup of the Chinese Women's Football Team, as many as 9 people were from Wuhan Women's Football Team, 7 people from Shanghai Women's Football Team, 4 people from Jiangsu Women's Football Team, and 1 person from Beijing and Guangdong Women's Football Team were selected. Among the 23-person registration lineup for the Hangzhou Asian Games, 8 are from Wuhan Women's Football Team and 5 are from Shanghai Women's Football Team. Among the 22-person registration squad for the Women's Olympic Preliminaries, 7 are foreign players, and 6 of the other 15 players are from Wuhan Women's Football Team.
Due to the different financial resources of women's football clubs, the traditional domestic women's football competitions such as the Women's Super League have been more polarized in recent years. For example, Wuhan Jiangda Women's Football Team won the Women's Super League for 4 consecutive championships, and behind them are often Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Changchun Women's Football Teams, which are also relatively stable old powerhouses. As for the rest of the teams, it is difficult to gather more high-quality human resources due to financial resources and other factors, and naturally they cannot pose a threat to the first group of league competition. For example, the Beijing women's football team, which ranked fifth in the Women's Super League last season, only accumulated 25 points in the whole season, which is less than half of the 61 points of the champion Wuhan women's football team. In such a disparity of strength, the lack of "competition" will not only reduce the enjoyment of the competition, but also greatly reduce the quality of the competition and the brand appeal of the event. As a result, the Chinese Football Association decided to limit the number of international players in women's football clubs from this year.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily learned that the Chinese Football Association has been brewing for a long time to adjust the relevant policies of the domestic women's football league and optimize the competition of the competition. In addition to the above policies, the foreign aid policy of the Women's Football League has also been adjusted. In the new season, the Women's Super League and Women's League A clubs can register no more than 3 foreign players during the winter transfer period, and no more than 4 foreign players can be registered in the two transfer periods. Although the current Women's Super League stipulates that each team can send a maximum of 2 foreign players to each game, the "Notice" confirms that "if the club has athletes transferred or loaned to the world's top 15 national teams at the end of the year in the Women's Football League this year and 2023, the club can add 1 foreign player to the relevant tournament in the current season, that is, a maximum of 3 foreign players can play at the same time in the game." ”
According to the FIFA 2023 Women's Football Year-end Rankings, the top 15 women's football teams in the world are Spain, the United States, France, England, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, North Korea, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Denmark, Italy, and Iceland. In the past two years, Chinese women's football players have joined club teams in Spain, France, England, Australia, Iceland and other countries. In this way, the relevant policies launched by the Chinese Football Association will further encourage local clubs to allow their players to stay abroad.
It is worth noting that the Chinese Football Association has also simultaneously launched the "investment cap" and "salary cap" policies of the Women's Super League and Women's A clubs, stipulating that the total annual investment of each Women's Super League and Women's A club shall not exceed 30 million yuan, and the player's personal annual income (including bonuses) shall not exceed 1.2 million yuan before tax and not less than 60,000 yuan before tax. In this regard, a domestic women's football expert explained: "The ebb and flow of men's football Jinyuan football has also brought a warning to women's football. There may be some women's club investors who are now in good financial position and are willing to invest more in women's football, but there are big doubts about whether this investment is sustainable. If there is not so much money to spend on large-scale reinforcements and pay high salaries to players in the future, then it may cause huge harm to the industry and investors themselves. Therefore, the entire women's football community should think of danger and must invest rationally. ”
In fact, the purpose of the Chinese Football Association to introduce the above series of policies is not to restrict or restrict, but to encourage more outstanding local players to embark on the road of staying abroad through feasible means. To this end, the Chinese Football Association has also launched a special "overseas support fee" policy to encourage local female football players to stay abroad in the form of subsidies, and strive for high-level overseas leagues to stay abroad. It is understood that the "overseas support fee" will be subsidized by tranches to local women's football players who have stayed abroad. Among them, the top five European leagues and the American league are the first pot leagues, and the remaining leagues are the second pot leagues. The same league is also divided into the top club bracket and the lower club bracket. The amount of subsidies for foreign players in each stall club is strictly different. In addition, the amount of the subsidy is linked to the player's appearance rate in overseas club competitions.
Text/Beiqing Sports Xiao Yun