Original title: Many chronic illnesses are hard to return, and reforms need to use heavy codes to eliminate disadvantages-Chinese football urgently needs to clean up the deep illness
The festive atmosphere of the Chinese New Year in the Year of the Rabbit has not yet dissipated, and Chinese football is still in a deep winter. On the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, the Wuhan Changjiang Club, which has persisted for more than ten years, announced its withdrawal from the Chinese Men’s Professional Football League and became the first choice in the preparation period for the new season. leaving team.
In recent seasons, every time the league ends, there has been news of the team disbanding or withdrawing, and even the embarrassment of disbanding after the Chinese Super League champion (Jiangsu Suning) won the championship. The reason is that the difficulty in making ends meet is just an appearance, and the root cause is the chronic diseases that have plagued Chinese football, especially professional leagues, for many years, such as chaotic planning, miscellaneous ideas, lack of talents, and poor management. If the above-mentioned key links cannot be completely eliminated and reformed, the future of Chinese football will still be difficult.
In the past year, Wuhan football can be described as “ice and fire”. As the “promoted horses”, the three towns of Wuhan became a blockbuster and won the Chinese Super League championship in one fell swoop; Changjiang failed to “hold on” in the end, and could only accept the double bitterness of relegation from the Chinese Super League and withdrawal from the professional league.
The Wuhan Yangtze River Club did not specify the reason for the withdrawal in the announcement, but only admitted that “there are many aspects of club and team management and operation that are not doing well enough.” However, people who pay attention to the Chinese Super League and other domestic professional football leagues can easily imagine that the business environment has continued to deteriorate in recent years, and the club’s management is struggling, which is the main reason why they finally chose to say goodbye. Wuhan Yangtze River has become another victim of the aftermath of the “Golden Yuan Storm” in Chinese football in the past.
According to public information, since Zall Holdings (the investor of the Yangtze River Club) took over the team in December 2011, the cumulative investment has reached nearly 4 billion yuan. But even so, Wuhan Yangtze River is also a “pediatrics” in front of the so-called “rich families” such as Guangzhou Evergrande, Hebei China Fortune, and Jiangsu Suning, which spent a lot of money in the past.
Coerced by “Golden Dollar Football”, the vast majority of Chinese Super League clubs, some Chinese League One teams and even Chinese League Two teams have blindly engaged in an arms race in the past 10 years, investing all the way. For example, Guizhou Hengfeng, the “promoted horse” of the Chinese Super League in the 2017 season, invested as much as 1 billion yuan in the first season of the Chinese Super League. The high investment like a wild horse eventually became a heavy shackle that crushed the club.
According to statistics, including Wuhan Yangtze River, in the past four consecutive seasons of the Chinese Super League, four clubs have announced their dissolution and withdrawal. In the past four years, as many as 45 clubs in the Chinese Super League, China A and China B three professional leagues have announced their dissolution or withdrawal.
What is even more worrying is that even though the Chinese Football Association has implemented measures such as player salary restrictions and club investment restrictions since 2018, and even though the investment of most teams in the past two years has gradually returned to rationality, the “Golden Dollar Football” brought The sequelae that come are still difficult to quickly eliminate. After Wuhan Yangtze River, it is not ruled out that there will be other Chinese Super League and Chinese A teams that will withdraw before the opening of the new season.
It has been more than 20 years since Chinese football started the professional reform, but so far there are still very few clubs that can be self-financing. The lack of scientific planning and “hematopoietic” functions has always caused domestic professional football leagues such as the Chinese Super League to be criticized by the outside world. The emergence of the chronic disease of “fake gambling” that once caused the professional league to suffer has become a problem that Chinese football must face and solve in the process of eliminating disadvantages and reforming.
Since Li Tie, the former head coach of the national football team, accepted the supervision and investigation on November 26 last year, a new round of anti-crime storms in Chinese football is continuing to advance.
According to media reports, during the investigation of Li Tie, several former coaches and managers of the Chinese Super League or Chinese Premier League clubs were investigated. On January 19, the website of the State Sports General Administration announced that Liu Yi, the executive member and former secretary-general of the Chinese Football Association, was suspected of serious violations of the law and was under investigation by relevant departments. Violation of the law is subject to review and investigation. This shows that the investigation of serious violations of discipline and law involving the management of the Football Association has made significant progress.
In this regard, the Chinese Football Association quickly held a meeting, emphasizing the need to learn lessons, take the case as a mirror, reflect and be vigilant, strengthen the management and supervision of football practitioners, and strive to create a clean and upright football ecology.
Some people in the industry said that the new round of anti-corruption and anti-crime work in football is an important opportunity for Chinese football to eliminate disadvantages and reform and start again. “It is indeed time for a change. Only by truly creating a youth training system with scientific planning and advanced concepts, as well as a well-functioning and mature professional league, can Chinese football have hope of rising.”
At the beginning of the new year, the Chinese football world, which had been silent for a long time, gradually started a new journey with the release of the training list of the Chinese men’s football Asian Games team and the regrouping of several national youth teams. But as of press time, key issues such as when the new season of the Chinese Super League will kick off, how to adjust the coaching position of the Chinese men’s football team, and when the Chinese Football Association will start the re-election work are still unresolved. Sounding the “opening whistle” as soon as possible is crucial to Chinese football at this stage. (Lee Won Ho)