The team name is neutral, and three major problems need to be solved

The "Suzhou Meeting" of the Chinese Football Association clearly pointed out that among the 16 clubs in the Chinese Super League, only one club, Dalian People's Club, complies with the regulations on neutralizing club names in the new season. The other 15 clubs must change their original names. The name of the club will be modified to be completely de-corporate and neutral.

The club name shall not contain the names or trade names of the club’s shareholders, shareholders’ related parties or actual controllers, nor shall they use homophones. Each club must complete the gender-neutral reform of the club name before the start of the 2021 season. Failure to pass the Chinese Football Association certification will not be granted league access.

Why should we carry out the gender-neutral reform of the team name? The Football Association's explanation is to learn from the practices of European football clubs. No matter how the investors change, the name will not change, making it easier to build a century-old club. The Football Association hopes that clubs will create a stable football culture and let their brands be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Instead of selling their names to earn sponsorship fees, it is better to make their names valuable in themselves.

It is not difficult to see that the original intention of the Football Association is excellent, but if each club wants to change it to a name that satisfies all parties, there are still three mountains to climb.

The first question is, do fans buy it?

Needless to say how important the fan group is to the professional football league. As soon as the news of the name change came out, fans immediately exploded, especially Beijing fans who had difficulty adapting to the disappearance of "Guoan". Beijing Guoan has witnessed the entire professionalization process of Chinese football - Beijing Guoan Football Club, established in 1992, is one of the founding teams of the Chinese Football League A. After that, the team name has been used to this day, and the team has never been relegated. In 2003, Beijing Guoan had a name change experience - Beijing Hyundai Motor spent 150 million yuan to obtain the naming rights of the Guoan football team for three years, and the team was renamed Beijing Guoan Football Club Beijing Hyundai Motor Team. But all along, whether it is Beijing Hyundai Motor or Beijing CITIC Guoan, in the mouths of fans, this team is called Beijing Guoan.

Neither the Football Association nor the clubs should and cannot ignore the fan group in this name change. Many clubs have suffered losses in this regard. In January 2014, after Greenland Group injected a large amount of capital, it planned to change the name of "Shenhua Liansheng" to "Greenland", which triggered strong protests from Shenhua fans. There were even many cases of fans raising placards to oppose and collectively defecting at the Chinese Super League matches. Phenomenon. Affected by the name change incident, the team's overall record this year was also very poor. Finally, under tremendous pressure, Greenland changed the club's name to "Shanghai Greenland Shenhua" the following year, which continues to this day. In addition, the Shenhua team’s team emblems currently retain both “Shenhua” and “Greenland”.

The lessons of history are painful. It is an ironclad fact that a team name must win the recognition of fans. Of course, it is also difficult to find a name that is acceptable to fans while taking into account various restrictions.

The second question is a professional issue of industrial and commercial registration

According to the regulations of the Football Association, club shareholders and affiliated companies cannot appear in the team name. Therefore, many Chinese Super League teams have considered using the place name + FC team name. But the problem is that the club's neutral name must first be registered with the local industry and commerce. According to Article 9, Paragraph 5 of the "Enterprise Name Registration and Management Regulations", enterprise names shall not contain Chinese pinyin, letters and numbers. This means that a team name like XXFC cannot pass industrial and commercial registration, and FC can only be used as the team’s external display name. Not only that, although a team name like Changchun 1996 has some similarities with Schalke 04, it may not be able to pass industrial and commercial registration in China. At present, the full name of the Chinese League One team Kunshan FC is Kunshan Football Club, and its abbreviation to the outside world is Kunshan FC. Therefore, how to pass registration is a professional issue that every club must solve.

The last question is how to protect the interests of investment companies

Neutral team names are particularly common in the five major European leagues, such as Barcelona, ??Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Manchester City, and Manchester United. , Juventus, etc. Behind the neutral team name is the sustained and stable development of the team. This development will not cause the team to die due to changes in the rise and fall of a certain company in a certain period. This is also the ideal situation of the Football Association, but the problem is that at least at this stage, the Chinese Super League teams are completely tied to investment companies. Once the companies withdraw their investment, the daily operations of the team will become a big problem.

Aren't Tianjin Tianhai, Liaoning Hongyun, Sichuan FC, and Baoding Rongda all so unbeatable?

Enterprises that invest in teams must want to get a return, and controlling the naming rights of the team seems to be the first major thing to do, and investing companies will most likely not be "active." Therefore, how to retain corporate interests to the maximum extent has become a big problem.

To give an example for reference: There is a team in the Korean K-League called Pohang Steelers, behind which is the Pohang Steel Group. Later, because the name wanted to be neutral, they added steel after the original name. er, which translates from "Pohang Ironman" to "Pohang Ironman". This not only completes the neutralization of the club's name, but also implies the sponsor, and also reflects the team's steely will. .

Generally speaking, only after the team achieves multi-channel revenue and gradually reduces its dependence on investment companies, will it have more stable development and truly achieve the "neutralization" of the team name.