On August 29, Zhou Qi, the chinese men's basketball player and the core player of the Xinjiang men's basketball team, announced on his personal social media that he would withdraw from the CBA League next season.
Zhou Qi made a statement
As the top center in China, Zhou Qi's contract with Xinjiang Guanghui Club expired on July 31, and the club had proposed to Zhou Qi at the end of June that the D contract (maximum salary of 6 million yuan / year) be renewed and filed with the CBA League. However, Zhou Qi never returned to the team to complete the signing, so the two sides failed to successfully fulfill the registration procedures for the new season. Since then, Zhou Qi has applied to the CBA Alliance for arbitration, but all claims have been rejected. In the end, Zhou Qi chose to express his attitude by not playing in next season's league.
For this contract dispute with the club, Zhou Qi wrote on social media: "I announced my withdrawal from the whole season and insisted on safeguarding the reasonable and legal rights of the players themselves, which is my responsibility as a player, I hope that through my affairs, the CBA League can be more standardized, and truly protect the reasonable rights of players, and at the same time, I will supplement the materials to the Chinese Basketball Association as soon as possible, and believe that the Basketball Association can give a fair and just ruling result." ”
Guo Jian, general manager of Xinjiang Guanghui Club, who has been connecting with Zhou Qi on related contract matters, said: "Zhou Qi is still in the contract period after the end of the national team competition task, we informed him to return to the team at that time, and also sent a letter to ask for continued performance, but he has not returned to the team. ”
Zhou Qi (left) plays for the national team
According to Guo Jian, after Zhou Qifang raised objections to the CBA Alliance on the contract issue, the CBA Alliance mediated in this regard. The CBA Alliance Disciplinary and Dispute Resolution Committee has made a mediation opinion on matters within its competence after completing the hearing and all procedures in accordance with the procedures and in the event that mediation fails. Based on the facts ascertained and the statements of the parties, the collegial panel held that Xinjiang Guanghui Club did not have any breach or violation of contract that was sufficient to constitute the player's right to unilaterally terminate the contract, and therefore did not support Zhou Qi's request for mediation.
Zhou Qi's team said: "The premise for players to perform the contract is that the club protects the legitimate rights and interests of players and operates in accordance with the law. We have always insisted on fighting for the legitimate rights and interests of basketball players, including Zhou Qi himself. We do not agree with the mediation opinion issued by the CBA Alliance and have reservations about the legitimacy of the case adjudicated by a collegial panel composed of representatives of the shareholders of the five clubs in the mediation procedure and the fairness of the mediation result in this case. The Chinese Basketball Association has received the arbitration application submitted by our side, and we will actively cooperate with the arbitration work of the Chinese Basketball Association and speak out to the outside world in an appropriate manner at the appropriate time. ”
Last season, Zhou Qi averaged 20.7 points, 11.9 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 2.3 blocks and 1.1 steals per game, helping Xinjiang to fourth in the regular season. In the playoffs, Xinjiang lost to Shandong and missed the final four.
Zhou Qi (left) in the game
For Zhou Qi's choice, former national player Ma Jian gave support, saying: "A player's sports youth is limited, and striving for value maximization is a natural and in line with the basis of business alliances and market laws." It is also an indisputable fact that most clubs lose money, and the love and helplessness of basketball have always been with each other. When the ball is kicked to arbitration, the league seems to be very passive, the league has been established for more than twenty years, and Zhou Qi's problem is certainly not the first player to have such a problem. How exactly do you handle the relationship between players and clubs to the CBA league? It seems that great wisdom and major surgery are really needed to change the current embarrassing state. ”
Basketball commentator Su Qun said that the CBA is different from the NBA system, and the rules for dealing with players when renewing contracts and transferring are also very different. According to him, in the 2019-2020 season, each club can receive dividends of more than 30 million yuan, affected by the epidemic, the 2020-2021 season playing the tournament system, not only the club has no box office, the overall income of the league has also been greatly hit, each club has a dividend reduced to 20 million yuan, which also uses the reserve fund.
Under normal circumstances, the club spends 30 million yuan a year on foreign aid, 30 million domestic players, box office revenue of up to 30 million, league dividends of 30 million, theoretically the income and expenditure can be flat, but in fact, it is impossible for the teams that have entered the top eight to spend 100 million yuan, and most clubs cannot reach the box office of 30 million, but the salaries of domestic and foreign players have a base, that is, 60 million or so.
In the case of serious losses for the club, it is not possible to satisfy both the players and the club. To this end, the CBA alliance has also introduced a relevant "salary cap" policy, using the 6 million maximum salary system to reduce financial pressure on the club.
The alliance introduced a maximum salary system
Meng Xiangyu, a player who also funded Liaoning youth training with Zhou Qi, expressed his support for his former teammates at the first time, saying: "Many people ask me what I think of the current situation between Zhou Qi and Xinjiang? I want to say that as a brother I will support him, but as a Xinjiang team, they are not wrong, because the team is protecting its own interests, protecting itself, after all, it is a player who has cultivated for so many years, I don't think there is anything wrong. Zhou Qi also did not make any mistakes, just wanted to be able to make the most money, because he is a professional player, he hopes to maximize his business value, to be able to go to other places to get more money, there is no mistake. It's just that now the rules of the alliance are not so mature, the alliance has been improving, but the rules of the alliance are not so mature and need to be improved step by step. ”
In contrast, the reaction of fans is polarized, and some fans believe that players should consider the difficulties of the club more and not deal with contract disputes in an extreme way, which not only damages the interests of the club, but also puts players in an embarrassing situation of no ball to play. This part of the fans even pointed the finger at Zhou Qi's agent Sui Ran, believing that many players represented by the latter had conflicts with the club.
Other fans said that they support the protection of players' rights and hope that the CBA league can introduce more standardized and reasonable renewal and transfer rules to avoid similar situations.