Football: The immortal legend on the green field

In the 2002 Japan-Korea World Cup, because Japan and South Korea co-hosted the event, China suddenly lost two opponents in Asia, leaving only Saudi Arabia and Iran.

When drawing lots for the top ten group stage, another good lot was drawn: China, as the second seeded team, will definitely avoid one of Iran and Saudi Arabia.

But the grouping results did avoid all of them, Saudi Arabia and Iran were placed in Group A, fighting each other. Under such a good situation, the only question left is whether the Chinese national team led by Milu can change the decline of previous years and fight their way out of Group B to Japan and South Korea.

Even when facing a weak team, the Chinese people are very worried, because the Chinese team has always had a "fine tradition" of "capsulating in the ditch".

In addition, the Chinese team's performance in the qualifying group stage was not satisfactory. In the Four-Nation Invitational Tournament in Shanghai, they actually lost to North Korea, which had not participated in international competitions for a long time!

This is unforgivable in the eyes of the Chinese people. Coupled with the "bombardment" incident in the qualifiers, all these things made the already pessimistic Chinese people even more pessimistic.

Fortunately, he overcame all objections and handed over the baton to the legendary Yugoslav coach Milu, and finally stepped onto the big stage of the World Cup for the first time, but most of the people in the circle, including himself, became impetuous.

Reality slapped me in the face. Fortunately, I led the Chinese national football team to the World Cup, but public opinion is so fucked up that everyone ignored the work I did and attributed all the credit to the veteran Zhang Jilong. What do you say? The Chinese team was drawn into the World Cup.

Fortunately, the higher authorities also saw this. They absolutely did not want the achievements of the national football team to be used to establish personal cult. With the joint efforts of himself, Nan Yong and Yang Yimin, the old guy finally retreated to the second line.

This is the time for me to demonstrate my abilities. Some ideas cannot wait any longer. Judging from the current situation in the South Africa World Cup qualifiers, it is unlikely that we will qualify. If I wait another half a month, my reform plan will be even less hopeful.

Director Yuan Weimin created unparalleled glory for the Chinese women's volleyball team in volleyball. After taking charge of football, he also wanted to do something for Chinese football. However, the national team's performance has declined sharply in recent years. He has a lot of thoughts. But after all, volleyball is different from football. Football has a wide audience. From the president to ordinary citizens, everyone loves and hates football. However, the performance of the national football team makes them helpless.

Director Yuan has a lot of ideas, but how to help Yuan Weimin realize his ideas practically requires a good sense of proportion.

Attracting investment is an eternal theme. Years ago, the speeches of passionate entrepreneurs like Wanda's Wang Jianlin expressing their disappointment with the investment environment in football were deafening. Bringing back these real investors is the top priority of the Football Association's Party Committee.

Given the current investment environment in football, if we want to develop, we cannot rely solely on the existing system. If we want to change this situation, change is the only way forward. How to change it is also a difficult problem facing us.

"Well, I read your article and I think it is very forward-looking. However, Shiduo, a few years ago, we were still at the top level in Asia, just slightly weaker than South Korea. In recent years, Japan, which we used to be able to defeat easily, has left us far behind. I see that you are very confident. Are you really that confident? Or should I be relieved?" Yuan Weimin put the materials in his hand aside with a smile.

"Isn't your classmate a middle-level manager in the NBA? If your reform plan is implemented, should we hire him to work as a consultant for you at a high salary? After all, you and I are both outsiders.

What's more important is that the concepts there are much more open than ours. To be honest, I have no idea about our internal efficiency and work style. You want others to feel comfortable investing real money. Capitalists are not fools. They need returns when they invest. Do you think they can get returns when they invest here? Or is the rate of return high enough? "

He didn't expect that Director Yuan would think so far ahead. This made him have a deeper impression of this official who was born into volleyball and old-school sports.

In particular, the other party mentioned the impact of the Football Association’s internal efficiency and work style on investment attraction, and was able to consider the issue from the perspective of capitalists, which is quite difficult.

Nowadays, many football workers only envy and hate neighboring countries, and resent why big capital does not come to invest in their own territory. However, they have never thought that capitalists are not philanthropists. The premise of investing is to make money, and to recover the cost as quickly as possible and then make more profits.

"I consider this issue from three aspects. Our players' skills and tactics are still far behind those of Japan and South Korea, but some top players, especially those who have been selected for the national team, are being scrambled for by various clubs. Their transfer fees are rising year by year, and some players' transfer fees can even reach an astonishing figure of 30 million.

The annual salary has reached an astonishing tens of millions, but after the contracts are signed, most of them cannot be fulfilled. This has resulted in constant lawsuits between players and clubs, causing a bad impact on world football.

However, there are many players in the A-B and B-League who have an annual salary of less than 50,000. According to the current domestic wage structure, an annual salary of 50,000 already puts them among the high-income earners. However, they do not think about the fact that the life span of a football player is only ten years. Due to training, they have missed the opportunity to study. Without football, most players are unemployed and cannot even guarantee their basic living.

Take national goalkeeper Zhang Feikang for example. He has only been retired for five years and now he is so poor that he needs help from kind-hearted people in society to avoid starvation. How ironic!

Even the national team players of some small African countries are unlikely to encounter such difficulties. So who would send their children to sports schools and training institutions to practice football?

The game just went professional ten years ago, with 97 registered young people that year. It reached its peak in 8 with 10 registered players, and then it has been halved year by year. This year, there are less than young players aged to . This is a terrible thing!

Compared with our opponents, there are around 200,000 children of each age playing football in South Korea, 600,000 in Japan, and even 200,000 in Thailand.

We can’t beat Japan now, and in a few years we might even lose to Thailand.

So I think the players' annual salary can be divided into several levels. The specific subdivision still needs research. For example, a Class A club has 5 players, and their annual salary can be divided into six levels. The first five players can have an annual salary capped at two million, the second five players 5 million, and the following ones are million, , , and respectively.

The A-B League can be adjusted down by 30% on this basis, and the B-League can be adjusted down by another 30%. In this way, the minimum annual salary of all professional players will not be less than 24 yuan. Calculated based on a minimum of ten years, as long as they embark on a professional career, the total income will be million yuan, which is enough to ensure that players can live a decent life after retirement. The investment of club investors will also be greatly reduced.

Cancel promotion and demotion, implement an access system, protect the interests of high-quality investors, and drive out speculators.

The highest league will be changed from Jia A to Super League, and the existing 30 teams will be gradually increased to a reasonable 2000 to . Jia B will be changed to the A-League, and the existing teams will be increased to . The B-League will be divided into two regions, north and south, with teams in each region. In this way, there will be professional teams. Calculated at players per team, there will be more than professional players. This will ensure the success rate of youth training, and parents will not be so resistant to their children who are interested in football participating in football activities, and the national team will be much more relaxed in selecting talents. "

"Shiduo, you mentioned canceling promotion and relegation and limiting players' salaries, but there is another aspect!" Yuan Weimin paid close attention to Yan Shiduo's views.

"Also, the current public opinion environment is not favorable to us. A few days ago, I saw a kid from Heilongjiang go to the Netherlands to play football, which caused a war of words on the Internet. The New Gold News also reported it. What is this! He is just a player from a lower-middle team in the Dutch second division. Is it necessary to make such a fuss? Even if the level of the Dutch league is better than ours, the level of this team is only at the middle level of the A League."

Yan Shiduo seemed to be thinking about something. "Director Yuan, I think if the Football Association wants to further deepen reforms, it must improve in many aspects. Then, using a more complete system may break our current dull and rigid working system. Only by introducing a division of labor with responsibilities assigned to individuals can we mobilize everyone's enthusiasm. For example, the External Propaganda Department should respond quickly when encountering such a situation, instead of passing the buck to each other. When public opinion ferments, no one will care about this matter. The nationality conversion incident reported by the New Jin News may be an opportunity and a booster for the internal system reform of the Football Association."

Seeing that Yuan Weimin was still deep in thought, Yan Shiduo also knew that this was a serious matter and Yuan Weimin could not make the decision alone. He had to discuss it with Nan Yong and bring it to the Standing Committee for study. In addition, he had to seek the opinions of the State Sports Commission. Now the situation was chaotic and it was hard to say what attitude other people had towards such an idea.

At 9: in the morning, Fei Qimin came out of Yuan Weimin's office and walked towards the small conference room. At the door, Yang Yimin, vice chairman of the Football Association, and Wei Shaohui, director of the national team's transportation management center, were smoking. Wei Shaohui seemed to be talking about some interesting topic. Yang Yimin listened carefully and nodded continuously.

Fei Qimin greeted the two standing committee members and walked into the meeting room. Only Yuan Li, who was in charge of the women's football team, was sitting in her seat looking through the materials in front of her. As the only female vice chairman of the Football Association's standing committee, the performance of the women's football team has been declining year by year, just like the men's football team. According to gossip, she will also be transferred to the General Administration of Sports with Director Yuan in this team adjustment and leave this place of right and wrong.

After a while, Li Dongshen, who was in charge of supervision and refereeing, also came in. He first apologized to Yuan Li, then walked to the last seat and sat down. He saw two nameplates on the podium. In addition to Yuan Weimin, there was also Zhang Jilong's nameplate next to it. He was a little surprised, but did not ask the question in his heart.

With five minutes left before the meeting, Nan Yong and Wei Shaohui walked in. No one talked much and everyone just silently looked through the agenda materials for today's meeting.

One minute before 9:, Zhang Jilong walked into the conference room holding a teacup in his hand and took his seat on the podium. Although he had resigned as a member of the Standing Committee, as the only vice-ministerial official of the Football Association besides Yuan Weimin, Fei Qimin still placed him under Director Yuan.

Immediately afterwards, Yuan Weimin, accompanied by Yan Shiduo, walked into the meeting room on time.

"Old Yan, I'm not pouring cold water on you. We all know the situation of the league. You have been in our Football Association for more than a year. The level of our players is just so-so. Therefore, in the early stage of the reform, we split the 20 first-class teams into Jia A and Jia B to ensure the competitiveness of the league. The number of participating teams in the top league originally planned will be gradually increased based on many considerations such as the league level.

Putting aside other things, the hasty change of the A-League to the Super League is in line with the international trend. After all, the birthplace of modern football in the UK has changed!

I have no objection to changing the name, but increasing the number of top-level league teams from twelve to twenty, isn't that going back to the old path of ten years ago?

The number of matches has increased, and the clubs have to travel a lot, which will greatly increase the running costs of the clubs. The increase in costs is secondary. As the number of top league teams increases from twelve to twenty, the competitive level will drop significantly, and the clubs will lose some spectators, which will reduce the clubs' income invisibly. Will the owners of the major clubs be willing to this addition and subtraction?

Also, we are not a small country like Japan and South Korea, which can drive their own buses to away games in an hour or two. With so many teams, the cost of air travel alone will be huge.

Limiting the annual salary of players? Can this be enforced? Those who earn high salaries are the bosses of the teams. They will let us do whatever we want. If they start making trouble, they will tear down the Football Association.

Others aside, Hao Haidong only needs to say one word and more than half of the national team players will immediately quit the national team. Can such a change be implemented? If it cannot be implemented, how much practical significance does it have? Our basic conditions are here, how can we do it? As you said, the state’s financial subsidies for football are decreasing year by year, and our Football Association does not have the financial strength to do it. Then we can only attract foreign funds to do it. Do you think we can attract foreign investment under our current conditions? "

Just like before, Yang Yimin, who was in charge of the league, took the lead, Wei Shaohui and Li Dongshen played supporting roles, and Executive Vice Chairman Nan Yong made the final summary. These four people firmly grasped the right to speak in the Football Association. With seven standing committee members, with these four people sticking together, even the experienced Yuan Weimin sometimes could do nothing.

Nan Yong took a long puff of his cigarette, stubbed it out in the ashtray, and took a sip of the teacup. "This idea is very forward-looking, but I think it's not suitable for the current situation, whether it's the actual conditions or the general climate. I think it's best for us to wait and see. If we do these gimmicks now, I'm afraid the Sports Committee will think we're trying to attract attention or even to win popularity."