The financial crisis that hit current champions Jiangsu Suning, forcing them to close their doors in February, has hit another of China’s elite team, Langfang City’s Hebei FC.
In late October, the club founded in 2010 announced that it has no way of continuing operations until a new investor comes along and pumps money into it.
In this scenario, the club officials warned that, in an attempt to collaborate and avoid the bankruptcy of Hebei, they will accept to work for free.
The communiqué, as reported by the Xinhua news agency, has the signature of 60 employees, who said they would accept being without pay until the club manages to restructure.
“The club cannot pay water bills, electricity and travel expenses,” says the letter. “As long as he can survive, we want to work without any pay, until the structural reform is completed, with the end of the crisis.”
The owner of Hebei, since 2015, is the developer China Fortune Land Development, one of the victims of the burst of the real estate bubble in the Asian country. Its shares plummeted, and debts would be around US$ 42 billion (almost R$ 230 billion).
In the qualifying phase of the Super League, the national championship of the first division, Hebei finished fourth in Group B, among eight teams, with six wins, five draws and three defeats.
The position ensured classification for the decisive stage of the competition, which will start in December.
Coached by a South Korean, Kim Jong-boo, Hebei, whose best Super League position was fourth in 2017, has four foreigners in the squad.
One of them is 24-year-old Brazilian striker Léo Souza, who played in Japan from 2018 to 2020 and this year he moved to China.
The others are Bosnian defender Samir Memisevic, Norwegian midfielder Ole Selnaes and Portuguese striker João Silva.
The main Brazilian players active in China are midfielder Oscar –who scored Brazil’s 7-1 goal of honor for Germany in the 2014 World Cup– and forwards Henrique Dourado, Ricardo Goulart and Alan Kardec.
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