Media Person: Zhao Rui s joining Shougang meets the rules, but behind it reflects the regulatory difficulties of CBA rules

August 29th, reporters exclusively learned on the 28th that the captain of the Chinese men's basketball team Zhao Rui will join Beijing Shougang in the new season.

Subsequently, media person @Fu Zhenghao talked about Zhao Rui's joining Shougang in the new season, and believed that Shougang's introduction of Zhao Rui did not violate the current rules.

The original text is as follows:

When the three D-class contract quotas of Beijing Men's Basketball Team have been used up, many readers are angry that Zhao Rui terminated the Class D contract and turned to sign the Beijing Shougang Men's Basketball Team with a Class C contract, believing it was a destruction of the rules. If you can understand the mood of these readers, you must be the kind of people who are very respectful of the rules in real life. However, it must be pointed out that Shougang's operations did not violate the CBA rules, and they were all flexible application of rules within the rules framework.

Shougang really cannot directly transfer Zhao Rui when the three maximum salary quotas are full. Some people suggest buying out Fan Ziming's contract, but this is not cost-effective. Shougang chose to do the opposite and persuaded the Xinjiang Men's Basketball Team to buy out Zhao Rui's Class D contract and then claim it by itself. Each step is in line with the current rules of the CBA.

Zhao Rui can choose his next player after becoming a free agent, and of course he will choose to join Shougang. At this stage, he can only sign C or D. If there is no Class D quota in Beijing, he can only sign C. Given that all Class D contracts in Beijing are 6 million, at the rule level, Zhao Rui can sign a Super Class C contract with an annual salary of 5.5 million.

In fact, when Beijing Men's Basketball Team signed Zhou Qi in the summer of 2024, they also followed the rules. They also first convinced the Guangdong Men's Basketball Team to allow Zhou Qi to become a restricted free agent, and then the Beijing Men's Basketball Team signed Zhou Qi through claiming. According to the rules, you only need to pay the Guangdong Men's Basketball Team an average annual salary for Zhou Qi as training fee, that is, the annual salary for Class D contract is 6 million.

Of course, everyone understands that whether it is to persuade the Guangdong Men's Basketball Team to allow Zhou Qi to become a restricted free agent in 2024, or to persuade the Xinjiang Men's Basketball Team to buy out Zhao Rui now, the cost of this "persuasion" is inconvenient to express. It can only be said that it is full of sincerity and let the other party agree to let his leading star go. The CBA rules do not prohibit clubs from paying such transfer costs before, or the rules deliberately leave a hole to compensate the mother club for personnel movement. Because everyone understands that players are trained by the club for a lot of money, and corresponding compensation is required when transferring, and a few million will definitely not be able to compensate the club.

The CBA initially implemented standard contracts and salary caps to enable CBA teams to compete fairly and promote player mobility, thereby maintaining a relatively balanced league strength pattern. Given that the Xinjiang Men's Basketball Team is located in the border and is indeed not attractive to players from a location perspective, it has also specially introduced a special case in Xinjiang, allowing the Xinjiang Men's Basketball Team to have a salary cap cap of 20% more than other clubs, and the winning bonus limit can be 10% more than other clubs. At that time, the CBA believed that 20% more salary cap and 10% more bonus were enough to attract players to join.

At that time, the CBA also launched various financial review mechanisms, hoping to ensure the club's financial transparency and disclosure, and thus curb Yin-Yang contracts and any form of signing fees. Before the introduction of this system, CBA executives sought opinions from all parties. When asked about me, I poured a basin of cold water very unceremoniously.

I roughly mean: The Chinese Basketball Association has introduced salary limit orders at least twice before, and those provisions are formulated in detail and rigorously. In 2009, it was even linked to the national team's performance. The system is good, but how to ensure implementation? Whether it is the Chinese Basketball Association or the CBA, you can only check the club's accounts. You cannot check the club's parent group's accounts, and you have no right to check the bank cards of players' families and friends.

Therefore, the system seems to be beautiful, but it is very difficult to implement. What Chinese people are best at is exploiting loopholes in the rules. The level of the Chinese Basketball Association is currently considered at the same level in many state-owned enterprises, and they do not have such strong professional financial investigation capabilities. It is naturally difficult to eliminate signing fees, consultation fees, family resettlement fees, household registration, school district housing and other forms and names.

I have broken a cold water by browsing the lessons from the past. The implication is that your rules are not substantial different from those before, and there is a lack of strict supervision, so the other party just nodded repeatedly. The two sides sat together and looked at the draft and gave feedback. After only 40 minutes of chatting, the atmosphere became a little awkward. The two were relatively speechless and said goodbye, and the typical words were not speculative.

They just launched a new initiative, but they just wanted to consult with them symbolically. In fact, they were giving us old media people in advance so that we could make positive publicity and reports. However, I gave people a lot of opinions very realistically, and I really don’t understand the charm. But to be honest, from the beginning, I was not optimistic that Da Yao’s reform measures could be truly implemented. If you want to use rules to manage people, you have to make the rules as impeccable as possible or have fewer loopholes. If you are talking to yourself, it will be difficult to implement, and even if it is implemented, it will be distorted.

At that time, some newly joined CBA companies under Yaoyao were particularly optimistic about the effect of the new rules, and they were also saying that CBA had achieved separation of management and management. They believe that things that the 20 shareholders of CBA company agree with and have been written into the company's regulations can be strictly enforced and followed by any regulations. As long as violations are found, they will be punished strictly in accordance with the system. Delehei, who was found to have a Yin-Yang contract, should be the first person to hit the gun. There was indeed a time when the CBA severely punished several clubs that violated the standard contract and salary cap.

However, as the Chinese Basketball Association increasingly attaches importance to the achievements of the Chinese men's basketball team, the Chinese Basketball Association has also begun to strengthen its requirements for the CBA, and the term "CBA management and office separation" has been mentioned less and less until no one has mentioned it again. In order to achieve good results in the World Cup in 2023, the Chinese Basketball Association personally came to help Zhou Qi get out of the trap. For this reason, the Chinese Basketball Association issued a ticket to the club, emphasizing that it has the right to formulate and interpret the rules, and can directly punish the club through the CBA company, which caused great controversy and a storm of withdrawal from the competition.

Late at night on August 18, the Chinese Basketball Association personally issued a document and announced with a high-profile high-profile manner that with their mediation, they successfully promoted the exchange of Zhou Qi and Zhao Rui.

From a positive perspective, in order to ensure that the core players of the Chinese men's basketball national team can prepare for the World Cup with peace of mind, the Basketball Association personally came to dominate the player transactions and successfully asked Zhou Qi to sign the Guangdong Men's Basketball Team before the World Cup starts, so that Zhou Qi can get the protection of CBA insurance, so that Zhou Qi can participate in the World Cup with peace of mind and fight for the country without any worries. But from a negative perspective, the Chinese Basketball Association forced its way into the transfer of CBA players while the management and office was separated, and also handled special matters for Zhou Qi, making an exception and allowed Zhou Qi to sign a one-year D contract with the Guangdong Men's Basketball Team. In addition, it also acquiesced to sign a confidentiality agreement between Zhou Qi's team and the Guangdong Men's Basketball Team on the cooperation this year.

At that time, other CBA clubs had objections to this, believing that the Basketball Association could not openly trample on the CBA company's regulations on "Class D contracts are signed for at least two years, up to five years", and acquiescing the two parties to sign a confidentiality agreement is even more likely to induce some non-compliant behavior.

At that time, I consulted relevant persons from the Basketball Association's registration department, and the other party told me: "The Chinese Basketball Association has the right to specifically approve Zhou Qi and Guangdong Hongyuan to sign a Class D contract for only one year, because the Basketball Association granted the CBA company the right to organize the competition and business rights of the CBA league, and approving the registration of players has always been the scope of the Basketball Association's authority. The Basketball Association has the right to give special approval on registration issues, even if this matter conflicts with the current regulations of the CBA company. The signing has been made public. If a club does not understand or accept it, they can raise objections, but the Chinese Basketball Association has the right to veto the major CBA affairs."

In a nutshell, the Basketball Association has the right to formulate rules and interpret rules in the registration rules, and can be temporarily revised or handled specifically according to its own needs.

Yao Ming's response to this afterwards was relatively gentle, but he still said that the special matters were handled. His general meaning was that both the players and the club applied for special matters, hoping to sign for only one year, and the Chinese Basketball Association approved the matter not to endanger anyone's rights. If other clubs have similar needs, they can also apply separately for special approval by the Chinese Basketball Association. This explanation is obviously not recognized by everyone. Therefore, in order to calm the dispute, the Chinese Basketball Association requires CBA companies to revise regulations in the summer of 2024 that future Class D contracts can only be signed for one year.

Looking back, the CBA clubs and stars’ awe of the CBA salary cap and standard contracts may have disappeared from late at night on August 18, 2023. Everyone understands that if you have strong abilities and sufficient status, you can also let the Basketball Association handle special tasks for you. The rules are not static and the rules can be reinterpreted. Yao Ming took the lead in imitating the NBA and launched the CBA salary cap and standard contract, but the Chinese Basketball Association under his leadership personally destroyed the CBA rules he formulated for the national team's performance.

I remember that after Zhou Qi signed the Guangdong Men's Basketball Team with a one-year D-class contract, a CBA club boss said to me with a heartache: "The Basketball Association is giving the green light openly. If everyone does this, how can there be any sense of awe of rules? The signing fee will not only make a comeback, but it will also become more and more intense." A prophecy came true!