The rise and fall of the Chinese Super League in the past 10 years is a microcosm of China's real estate industry. When the domestic real estate industry was booming, nearly half of the investors in the Chinese Super League clubs were large real estate companies.

For example: Evergrande Group invested in the eight-time Chinese Super League champion Guangzhou team, Zhonghe Group invested in Beijing Guoan, Greenland Group invested in Shanghai Shenhua, R&F Group invested in Guangzhou City, China Fortune Land Development invested in the Hebei team, etc. etc., are all leading domestic real estate companies.

After large-scale real estate companies headed by Evergrande entered the Chinese football circle, they brought a lot of hot money to the Chinese Super League. Jinyuan Football became popular in domestic leagues at all levels.

Against this background, the Chinese Super League has attracted many world-renowned foreign players and foreign teachers. Their annual income in China is calculated in tens of millions of euros. The value of many local players in the league has also increased. Although their annual salary cannot be compared with these big-name foreign players, it can also easily exceed the level of tens of millions of yuan.

It can be said that the past few years have been the craziest stage of the Chinese Super League. Some international players have continuously changed teams in order to get large signing fees and huge annual salaries. There is even a player who has played for four major Chinese Super League clubs: Shandong Luneng, Shanghai SIPG, Beijing Guoan and Guangzhou Evergrande.

Needless to say, everyone knows that this player is Wei Shihao, the current international player who is currently playing for the Guangzhou team. Wei Shihao, who came out of Luneng's youth training, broke his contract with his old club and left for Portugal in order to make a lot of money with other teams.

After being gilded in Europe, Wei Shihao returned to China and joined Shanghai Haigang, a new local team in the Chinese Super League. After playing for the Harbor Team for only one season, Wei Shihao joined the veteran Chinese Super League team Beijing Guoan. Wei Shihao did not stay in Guoan for too long. One year later, Wei Shihao joined Guangzhou Evergrande with a transfer value of 20 million yuan.

After joining Guangzhou Evergrande, Wei Shihao's annual salary has been significantly increased. Since he is a regular player of the national team, he also received a maximum salary contract of 12 million yuan in the Chinese Super League. Coupled with income from winning prizes, portrait rights and endorsement advertising fees, Wei Shihao's annual income at Evergrande is conservatively estimated to be around 20 million.

At a young age, his annual income exceeds tens of millions, which makes Wei Shihao start to expand. Deciding to take root in Guangzhou Evergrande, he purchased a luxury home in Guangzhou in 2020 with a total price of 20 million yuan.

Although Wei Shihao’s income has exceeded 99% of the people in China, after all, he is not a real entrepreneur and does not have much capital accumulation. Therefore, when he bought a luxury house, he only paid a small part of the down payment, and the rest was borrowed from a bank. Therefore, his monthly loan repayment amount to the bank is as high as 100,000 yuan.

After Evergrande Group encountered a serious financial situation last year, the Guangzhou team also had problems with financial training. Without operating funds, the club became increasingly difficult. Under such circumstances, foreign players, naturalized players and most of the first team's main players left the Guangzhou team in just one year.

This time, Wei Shihao unexpectedly did not transfer but continued to stay in the Guangzhou team. Many people believe that this is because of his frequent job-hopping in the past years and his bad record in the league. It has offended most of the Chinese Super League clubs. Therefore, it was difficult for him to find a new home for himself.

Wei Shihao, who remains in the Guangzhou team, can only earn a mere 600,000 yuan in pre-tax annual salary. Although this income level is still considered very high in China, it is completely unable to satisfy Wei Shihao, who is used to spending a lot of money. Recently, according to a Shanghai media report, Wei Shihao’s current income is not even enough to pay off his monthly mortgage.

Therefore, some people in the real estate industry also predict that Wei Shihao is likely to sell his house in Guangzhou in the near future to stop losses in time. Gao Lin, Wei Shihao's former teammate in the Guangzhou team, had already started selling his mansion in Guangzhou 2 months ago. But because the price quoted is too high, it has not been sold yet.

Judging from the current domestic real estate situation, Wei Shihao's current house sales are probably more likely to be a loss-making transaction. Even so, he had to sell, because it was better to lose money than to be classified as a "bad guy" by the bank if the debt was not paid.

As for the current situation, I wonder if Wei Shihao will regret not staying in Shandong. Although the salary is not as high as in Evergrande, at least I can still have a stable income now.

However, there is no "regret medicine" to buy in this world...