Source: Pengpai News
Special written by Pengpai News Zhang Yangyuan/Boiling Football
Japanese international Endo Hokkaido (left) and Kamada Dadi confronted in Bundesliga .
discuss professional sports events, athletes’ salary is a hurdle that cannot be overcome. The level of Chinese football has not been high for a long time. There is a saying that it is caused by excessive salary. Is this really the case? What is the salary level of professional players in Japan?
Recently, 20 teams in the J1 league in Japan announced their salary expenditures, and Kobe ranked first with 4.712.4 million yen (100 million yen ≈5.8 million RMB)), more than 4 times the Kawasaki striker 1 billion 79.6 million yen.
At the end of 2014, Lotte Group became the wholly-owned major shareholder of the team. The team's boss Mikitani Hiroshi has made great efforts in succession, and has successively introduced many stars such as Podolski, Villa , Iniesta , Vermalen, etc. But this did not trigger the "fiction" of Japanese football, nor did it hinder Japanese players from studying abroad.
Iniesta is in Japan with a super high salary. How much can a star in
J League earn?
Judging from the team and player salary list currently announced in the 2021 J League (excluding recent transfers), there is no suspense among the 20 teams that have the most salary expenditures, which is Kobe Victory Ship .
This team, which takes the tycoon route, has an annual salary expenditure of more than 4.7 billion yen. Among them, as the world's top superstar, Iniesta's salary expenditure alone reached 3.2 billion yen, equivalent to 24 million euros. Such income can also be ranked in the top 3 in , Barcelona .
After Xiaobai, among the top 9 players in the J League, only Sakai Gaode is a local player, and the rest of the players are all foreign players. The second, third and fourth places are all from Kobe, namely Vilmuelen with 500 million yen, Douglas with 200 million yen, and Samper with 150 million yen.
Kobe Victory Ship has Iniesta (middle) and Boyang (left one).
Nagoya 's Australian foreign aid and former Dortmund goalkeeper Langerak can also earn a salary of 150 million yen. He is also the "big head" of Nagoya's annual salary expenditure.
The team's annual salary expenditure is about 1.2 billion yen. , Kashitani Yoichiro , Gabriel, and , Saito Xue , can only get an annual salary of 100 million yen.
It should be noted that this summer, Kobe has successively introduced stars such as Damai Yuya, Muto Yaki , and Boyang. As the main striker of the team , the media said that Damai received a salary of up to 400 million yen, directly doubled the maximum salary record of local players in the J League, and the latter two also had an income of 200 million yen.
According to calculations, the other two international players who also returned to the J League, Nagato Yuto and Sakai Hiroki will not break away from the existing salary structure.
Starting from Kobe's Yamaguchi Hoku , the salary ranking of J League has entered the 100 million range. Among these players, local players are mainly local players, including a small number of Korean foreign players and South American foreign players.
J League team expenditure ranking.
J League does not have an "arms race"
In general, Rakuten investing in Kobe Victory Ship has caused a certain degree of change in the salary structure of Japanese football.
However, excluding several super high-salary players in Kobe and considering the impact of inflation, we can see that the salary structure of the J League has not changed much.
We will go back to 2016 5 years ago - the team with the most salary expenditure in the J League season was Osaka Gamba 's 1.08 billion yen, and the maximum salary was 160 million yen yen.
Moreover, the top three players on the salary ranking that year were all veterans over 40 years old, and they were all stable at around 100 million yen. It can be seen that Lotte's entry into Kobe did not trigger the "catfish effect" in the J League, disrupting the team building plans of other teams.
J League Player Salary Ranking.
There has been no irrational investment in various teams. On the contrary, the team that spends the most money may not be ideal. Apart from the Emperor Cup championship in 2019, which allows the team to participate in the 2020 shrinking AFC Champions League, there is no outstanding result, becoming a "strange" existence in the J League.
Interestingly, Lotte Group seems to be a representative of the "silly people and a lot of money" in the Japanese professional sports industry. The group's professional baseball team, Northeast Lotte Golden Eagle, also takes a big investment route.
In 2021, they invited back the former ace pitcher, Kazuya Tan from the Major League, and immediately gave him a maximum salary contract for a professional baseball salary of 900 million yen, but the team is still competing for playoff tickets, and Tanaka's recent performance is not very ideal...
Only when they join a team of the Premier League Arsenal level, the salary of Fu'an Jianyang (left) has increased a lot.
Salary affects your willingness to stay in foreign countries?
Many people think that Japanese players choose to study abroad because of their low salary in China. Is this true?
Let’s first say the conclusion - after outstanding Japanese players go abroad, their salary will generally be much more than when they were in China, but it also depends on the league and team the players go to. Salary is not the main factor affecting their willingness to go abroad.
is like Fu'an Jianyang, who has performed very well in Arsenal recently. This defender who has grown rapidly in recent years can only earn a salary of about 100 million yen during his playing football in Bologna . However, this is indeed much higher than his salary during the Fukuoka Hornets and St. Tulden.
According to British media reports, Arsenal will give him an annual salary of 2.5 million euros, equivalent to 350 million yen. Obviously, the Premier League platform has increased its income.
Minamio Takumi , which plays football in Liverpool , is also in a similar situation. His current revenue in the Premier League has reached more than 500 million yen, which can already surpass many veterans of the Japanese national team.
It is worth noting that Kubo Jianying , which was rented out in Majorca by Real Madrid , can earn an annual salary of more than 300 million yen. If he still stays in Japan to play football, this number is hard to imagine.
But not all players can earn a good income after studying abroad. Currently, the Japanese team's main midfielder and the new captain of Stuttgart , Endo Hokkien's income in the Bundesliga powerhouse is only about 70 million yen. This number may not be competitive even if compared with J League players of the same age as him.
is similar to Endo Hokkaido, including Bundesliga players such as Kamada and Masaya Okugawa. Their income is currently difficult to exceed the 100 million yen mark.
Not to mention some players who play football in , Eredivisie , than League One, the financial resources of those league teams are even more difficult to support their salary of more than 100 million yen.
However, one thing to note is that Japanese society focuses on seniority ranking, especially in professional sports. Even no matter how outstanding a new star is, it is difficult to earn a super high salary when staying in Japan. For example, the rising star Misaki who just went abroad in summer had only earned 20 million yen in Kawasaki.
Japanese veteran international Endo Hokuhito can earn 100 million yen even in the J2 league.
Salary and studying abroad are not hostile
We can see that the salary of Japanese professional players playing abroad is indeed higher than that of staying in China, but except for a few players who go to the Premier League and the giants, the salary increase will not be very obvious.
We must realize one thing - Japanese players are first-class in Asia and have the level of playing football in European clubs. European clubs will introduce them to expand the market and can also gain competitive value with relatively low salaries. Why not?
So, we have the conclusion at the beginning of this paragraph. Salary is only one factor, and not the most important factor. The driving force that drives Japanese players to be willing to play football in Europe is that their level is enough to gain a foothold in the European League and enough to attract European teams to invest in it.
If we only limit the reasons to salary when we look at Chinese players who cannot stay abroad, it is obviously too one-sided and becomes a negative result.
