“The requirement for standardized contracts is probably meant to establish mutual trust between players and clubs, with less trickery and more sincerity.”
“Yes, there are indeed some problems with how clubs handle contracts.”
“Previously, when DGE sold player contracts, it was because other clubs signed directly with us, so they didn’t dare to play tricks.”
“If free agents join these clubs, who knows what kind of contract traps they might encounter?”
Zhang Yuan knew clearly that under the current model, many contracts prepared by clubs contained pitfalls.
Clubs, for their own interests, would certainly want to lock down the most promising players at the lowest cost, while players, for their own interests, would naturally pursue higher salaries and more opportunities.
Neither behavior was blameworthy; both were acting in self-interest. But the problem was that this would seriously damage the mutual trust between clubs and players.
To compete for a star player, clubs would often offer a high price but bury various traps in the contract, waiting for players to fall for them.
It was like the tricks many e-commerce websites used—offering apparent discounts on the surface but setting hurdles elsewhere.
Everything sounded good during negotiations, but once the contract was signed, you’d be dumbfounded.
As a result, players didn’t trust clubs, and clubs didn’t trust players. Many situations became zero-sum games, with the weaker party suffering losses.
And in most cases, the weaker party was the player.
After all, large clubs had their legal teams, giving them an absolute advantage when signing contracts.
The standardized contracts required by Mr. Pei meant everyone would be transparent without playing games.
Previous complex contract clauses would all be clarified, with changes only in terms of duration, penalty fees, transfer fees, specific salaries, and special clauses.
These special clauses weren’t meant to restrict players but to ensure that clubs’ promises wouldn’t become empty words.
For example, if two clubs were competing for a player, one offering more money while the other offering less but guaranteeing playing time, the player would have more room for choice.
Many times, players hesitated not because they were greedy.
Each contract was different—the one offering more money had hidden traps, while the one offering less wasn’t necessarily better. You couldn’t take the contract back for careful study, so how could you make a hasty decision?
It was like selling something where each buyer didn’t offer a definite amount but a bunch of complex terms. To avoid being tricked, players had to spend a lot of energy screening these offers.
But the problem was that players weren’t legal professionals. Finding a specialized legal team was time-consuming and expensive, and they weren’t always reliable.
Being a professional player was a career limited by youth; a lifetime’s income and future might be concentrated in just one or two years at their peak. How could they not shop around?
When clubs bought players, they would also pick and choose among many outstanding players, which was normal business behavior and nothing to criticize.
But clubs had much stronger risk resistance. Signing the wrong person only meant paying extra to keep a benchwarmer, while players’ risk resistance was much weaker.
If something went wrong, an excellent young player might ruin their entire career.
So, Mr. Pei’s goal was clear: avoid all that fakery and just follow these few rules. Let players without much legal knowledge understand the terms and make their own choices.
Free agent players could contact all clubs, each club would make promises, and the official organization would act as an intermediary. Whoever broke a promise would pay a penalty.
Clubs shouldn’t think about getting bargains and treating players like slaves; individual players also shouldn’t think about taking high salaries to slack off and take advantage of clubs.
Everyone should step back, avoid cheating each other, and ensure players’ earnings roughly match their value, without getting too outrageous.
The silent auction method was to prevent wealthy clubs from maliciously driving up prices and squeezing the survival space of smaller clubs. At the same time, players’ interests wouldn’t be harmed, as clubs couldn’t unite to suppress prices, and truly capable players could still receive high salaries.
Moreover, these contracts didn’t harm the interests of clubs.
Clubs’ interests mainly lie in three aspects: attention, popularity, and brand recognition from competitions; real economic benefits from sponsors; and ensuring that after training players, they wouldn’t benefit others for nothing.
In terms of popularity and brand recognition, Mr. Pei’s supervision wouldn’t have any impact.
Regarding sponsors and economic benefits, there wasn’t any real damage either.
Clubs could still sign long-term contracts with players and collect transfer fees, so these interests weren’t affected.
However, situations where clubs wanted to lock down a player with a contract and then permanently bench them after a conflict would no longer be possible, because the standardized contracts required by Mr. Pei didn’t support this.
If such a situation arose, Mr. Pei would find ways to rescue the player.
These standardized contracts weren’t meant to starve clubs but to make them eat a bit less and give back some to the players.
This way, through Tenda’s official intervention, players and clubs would establish mutual trust and wouldn’t need to play tricks on each other. Any contract demands from clubs or players could be submitted to the official body for mediation and resolution.
Of course, absolute fairness didn’t exist in this world, but at least relative fairness could be pursued.
Were contracts offered by clubs fairer? Or were the contracts provided by Mr. Pei fairer?
This was obvious.
Because clubs and players ultimately all wanted to protect their interests, which was understandable, but it also meant they wouldn’t consider the impact on the entire e-sports environment.
Mr. Pei’s stance was completely objective and fair, as could be seen from his determination.
Other competition organizers’ interests aligned with clubs, and they often didn’t dare or didn’t need to offend clubs, which meant players had to suffer silently.
But Mr. Pei’s attitude was clear: he wouldn’t indulge players, but he would indulge clubs even less.
Clubs that disagreed with these standardized contracts had their schemes, wanting to play tricks on players with their contracts.
If that was the case, then sorry, other fields might be beyond control, but they shouldn’t participate in GOG e-sports competitions. Even if it meant giving up the popularity and resources brought by these clubs, the fairness and justice of the entire e-sports system must be maintained.
Thinking about this, Zhang Yuan couldn’t help but marvel at this determined decision to cut off one’s arm to save the body!
In the short term, this move would inevitably cause discontent among many clubs and might even lead to a decline in GOG e-sports competitions’ popularity and player salaries.
But in the long run, the entire ecosystem would become healthier.
Even if player salaries decreased somewhat, it would also eliminate huge risks for them.
Mr. Pei thought it was “worth it” because he believed the importance of a healthy league ecosystem far outweighed the popularity brought by a few clubs. He was confident that the GOG league could be established regardless of whether these clubs participated!
And now, taking the opportunity of establishing the GPL league, setting up an admission system for various clubs was a preventive measure.
Because the GOG divisions of these clubs had just been established recently, even if these clubs withdrew and Mr. Pei had to find new owners or buy them all, it wouldn’t cost much, and the impact would be within a controllable range.
If they waited until the popularity took off, it would be much harder to establish these regulations.
It was like treating diseases—prevention was better than surgery after the illness had become terminal.
As for why DGE would only take the minimum transfer fee?
Zhang Yuan initially didn’t understand. Wouldn’t this harm DGE Club’s interests?
But then he realized this was precisely an important complement to the entire mechanism!
Many new players who hadn’t achieved results yet actually had no bargaining power at all.
This was normal, as clubs also took risks when buying players. Some players performed well in ranked games but fell apart in actual matches, so it would be a huge loss for clubs to pay a high price for them.
Therefore, rookie contracts were often very low-priced.
But this gave rise to a new problem: those truly talented players could only sign rookie contracts at first, with low prices and long terms. Even after achieving results, they couldn’t get corresponding salaries, and might even be benched if they fell out with the club.
Many players’ peak periods lasted only a year or two, and one misstep could ruin their entire careers.
This had no right or wrong; everyone was acting in self-interest, but it created actual waste.
Talented rookies on low salaries would definitely have mood swings, affecting their performance in matches. If they fell out with the club and got benched, these excellent players would be buried forever, which would be a loss for the entire league.
Therefore, the DGE Club only requiring the minimum transfer fee was good news for rookies.
If they were capable and confident, they could choose to join the DGE Club first, avoiding the pitfalls of rookie contracts. Once they proved themselves, they would naturally be bought by better clubs.
DGE Club would act as a filter, testing players for other clubs while providing players with an opportunity to prove themselves.
For DGE Club, this wasn’t a loss either.
This move would make more ambitious, excellent rookies desperately want to join the DGE Club, ensuring that DGE’s new players were of higher quality than other clubs, maintaining a relatively high level of strength, which was beneficial for maintaining DGE’s brand value.
Although they didn’t compete in matches, they could continuously remind audiences of their existence by sending these new faces to the league.
When an outstanding rookie appeared, audiences would realize they came from DGE, naturally maintaining high attention on the DGE Club.
With increasing attention, sponsorships would naturally improve. Moreover, other clubs buying players from DGE would still pay transfer fees, even if they were lower.
The brilliance of this decision was that other clubs couldn’t copy it.
Because DGE’s operation model differed from all other clubs, they didn’t participate in competitions or need to produce results; they only needed to train players. There was no competitive relationship; it was mutually beneficial.
Moreover, this move could better maintain the ecology of the entire GOG league, benefiting the whole Tenda Group.
So, sacrificing a bit of DGE’s immediate interests to gain long-term benefits—wasn’t that a good deal?