Red Star News reporter Pei Yi Zhou Yao
On the evening of February 28, Xinjiang Guanghui basketball club announced its withdrawal from this season’s competition and its withdrawal from CBA league. Later, in the early morning of March 1st, Zhou Qi issued a reply, accusing the top men’s basketball in Xinjiang of “I have been bullied and deceived by me for years, and I have been rubbing and cheating, which makes me really unbearable.”
The relationship between Zhou Qi and Xinjiang men’s basketball has always been one of the most controversial subject CBA. The contradiction between the two sides has a long history……
Since entering the Liaoning youth team at the age of 13, Zhou Qi’s career has entered the track. In 2011, 15-year-old Zhou Qi participated in the U16 Asian youth competition. He, who was 2 meters tall, scored 43 points, 19 rebounds, 12 cap 3 assists in the final and helped the Chinese youth team win the championship, after this campaign, it can be described as “come to fame in an activity”. When Zhou Qi’s youth team contract expired in 2013, he and Liaoning team had intended to sign a contract of 4 years and 12 million years, but in the end the two parties failed to sign the contract successfully.
The root of the problem-contract
In 2014, Zhou Qi signed a contract with Xinjiang team. The two parties signed a “4+2” contract, which follows the contract mode of “X + Y” in CBA league. This is the basic rule for CBA to sign contracts with teams and players all the time. Previously, CBA stipulated that players who were promoted from the youth team to the adult team should sign contracts with the mother team in accordance with the X + Y mode, that is to say, after the contract expires in X years, the mother team will enjoy the priority renewal right in Y years. That is, after Zhou Qi’s 4-year contract expires, the Xinjiang team has the priority to sign the contract for 2 years.
In the 2014-15 season, Zhou Qi started his CBA career in Xinjiang. In 2016, Zhou Qi was selected by the Rockets, but he did not leave CBA at that time, but stayed in CBA for another year. In the 2016-17 season, Zhou Qi led the team to beat Guangdong and won the first CBA championship in Xinjiang young pioneer team history.
In the summer of 2017, the Chinese Basketball Association issued a clarification letter to Zhou Qi, which proved that Zhou Qi had no employment contract relationship with the Xinjiang team, allowing Zhou Qi to successfully sign a contract with the NBA team Houston Rockets.
On December 17, 2018, Zhou Qi was laid off by the Rockets, ending his NBA career. Since the registration period stipulated by CBA for each team (August 31) had passed at that time, CBA finally ruled that Zhou Qi did not have the qualification to play CBA in the 2018-19 season.
However, in the summer of 2018, when Zhou Qi was still playing for the Rockets, CBA released a new contract template, namely the “ABCDE” contract. At that time, the release of this “standard contract” was regarded as an example of NBA benchmarking in CBA league. Among them, Class A was the rookie contract, while Class B was the young player contract after the rookie contract expired, class C is a formal contract, Class E is a veteran contract, and Class D is the most critical top salary renewal contract. After the contracts of Class B, class C and Class E expire, as long as the original club gives the top salary, it can have the exclusive right to sign the contract. This new regulation also stipulates the contract template for overseas Chinese players to return to CBA, which determines that if there is still a contract with the previous parent team before the players return to China, the remaining contracts will be recorded as Class A or Class B contracts according to regulations.
Therefore, according to the new regulations in 2018, Zhou Qi and the Xinjiang team still have 2 years left in the remaining contract, with the Xinjiang team’s 2-year priority signing right attached.
New contract or old contract? Divergence
However, Zhou Qi’s team has different views on whether there is still a contractual relationship with Xinjiang team after returning to CBA. In their view, the Chinese Basketball Association has issued a letter of clarification, so that Zhou Qi can play in NBA smoothly, which also means that the contract between Zhou Qi and Xinjiang has been completely terminated. After finishing his contract with the Rockets, he has actually recovered his complete freedom. He can choose any team he wants to join.
However, in the view of Xinjiang team, the clarification letter held by Zhou Qi in NBA only represents the “suspension” of the “4+2” contract between Xinjiang team and Zhou Qi. Since Zhou Qi has returned to CBA, then the unfinished contract still needs to be completed, and the club still retains his “priority renewal right”.
In response to the dispute between the two sides, CBA officials ruled in April 2019 that Zhou Qi had no employment relationship with Xinjiang when he left CBA, but some rights and interests in the old contract signed by the club and the players still apply, the Xinjiang team still retains the “+2” rights and interests, that is, it has the priority to renew Zhou Qi for two years.
Under this background, on August 13, 2019, Zhou Qi renewed the contract with the Xinjiang team for two years.
The contradiction was only briefly avoided and not completely solved.
On the official website, Zhou Qi’s contract was registered as a Class B contract. According to the new regulations of Basketball Association in 2018, after the contract expires in the summer of 2021, Xinjiang team has the exclusive renewal right of Class D contract after the contract expires. Xinjiang team only needs to give Zhou Qi a Class D top salary contract, you can continue to leave Zhou Qi.
However, Zhou Qi believes that after returning from NBA, the two-year “+2” renewal contract from 2019 to 2021 followed the old regulations of 2014. Zhou Qi signed a contract with Xinjiang team, the old contract is still playing a role, so the relationship between the two sides should always be implemented according to the old contract. According to this understanding, after the implementation of the two-year contract between Zhou Qi and Xinjiang, CBA officials should give Zhou Qi a complete free agent status.
As a result, the two sides began to pull for a long time.
On June 21, 2021, Zhou Qi applied to CBA alliance for mediation of disputes with Xinjiang team; On June 25, 2021, Xinjiang team exercised the exclusive renewal right of the club, he offered a class D contract with a top salary of 6 million yuan to Zhou Qi, and at the same time, the mediation and arbitration procedures applied by the Chinese Basketball Association were coming to an end. On July 15, 2021, Zhou Qi’s agent Xiao Ran published a microblog, he said that the mediation was not over and hoped that the league would deal with it fairly. On September 8, 2021, Zhou Qi’s official announced to join the Southeast Melbourne Phoenix team of the Australian NBL league.
On February 17, 2023, China Basketball Association issued an announcement. Xinhua News Agency said that basketball association people interpreted Zhou Qi’s “Recovery of freedom” and could join other CBA teams. On February 18, Xinjiang Guanghui basketball club issued a statement. Chairman Guo Zhun said that if the relevant problems could not be solved reasonably, Xinjiang would even withdraw from the CBA league.
On February 28, Xinjiang Guanghui basketball club announced that it would withdraw from this season’s competition and withdraw from CBA league. In the announcement, the club stated that the discipline and ethics committee of the Basketball Association believed that Xinjiang Guanghui basketball club had “registered violations” and made serious mistakes and unreasonable “penalties” on February 17 “, it seriously violated the legitimate rights and interests of the club. The club” cannot recognize and never accept “, so it made a solemn decision to quit.
In the early morning of March 1st, Zhou Qi issued a reply, accusing the senior officials of Xinjiang men’s basketball of “I can’t bear to bully and deceive me for many years, rubbing and falsifying.” Finally, Zhou Qi said that he hoped to make CBA alliance more standardized through his own events, “I insist on athletes to safeguard their reasonable and legal rights. I hope the players are no longer the weak side. This time, I saw hope for the punishment decision for Xinjiang.”
As of press release, CBA Company and China Basketball Association have not issued an official statement on this incident. However, this “soap opera” about the contract is far from the end of the day……
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Xinjiang men’s basketball and Zhou Qi’s entanglement