Recently Ke Jie, a professional player in the China Weiqi A-class League, has demanded unpaid money from a Weiqi club which has aroused great public interest.

On December 13th , Weiqi player Kejie stated on his Sina Weibo that he hopes the China Weiqi A-class League Competition will get better and better and that there will be no issue of unpaid salaries in the future. Kejie also indicated that as from 2014 the Weiqi club Dalianshangfang owe unpaid salaries to Park Jung Hwan of￥500k, Ke Jie of ￥300k and Mi Yu Ting of ￥100k approximately.

Ke Jie is outstanding among Chinese professional Weiqi players and had once played against AlphaGo in 2016. In 2014 Dalianshangfang Property collaborated with the Jiangsu Team to play in the China Weiqi A-class League Competition and brought in several players including Kejie. Dalianshangfang finally won the championship that year. In 2015 Dalianshangfang withdrew from the league competition and delayed the previously promised bonus.

Players cannot take a legal action against Dalianshangfang due to lack of officially signed contracts between them.

The concerned parties indicated that Kejie’s salary and player of the year bonus had been paid at that time. Only the winning bonus hasn’t been paid because of Dalianshangfang Property encountering commercial difficulties. After Kejie released the micro-blog, the concerned parties have been in communication with each other and have indicated that the outstanding payment will be settled by the end of this year.

This issue has started a public debate about how to improve the professionalism of  Chinese Weiqi teams.

Source：Beijing Youth Daily and eastday.com

Proofread by Sean O Diobhilin