Zhang Aijun: Marbury never signed a contract

Marbury never signed a contract,” said Shanxi’s general manager Zhang Aijun to Xinhua reporter, Ma Lin. “So there was no breach of contract, nor was there any treachery.”

According to the report, Marbury and Shanxi agreed upon a general contract structure and put in a clause that would allow the two sides to cooperate with each other in marketing and branding the two time All-Star’s “Starbury” shoe line.

However, when Marbury returned to the States, he sent back another contract filled with other clauses, including one stipulating that the team must re-sign Maurice Taylor, who played with Marbury on Shanxi last year, for another year. Adding to that, Marbury also requested that the two be put up in a five-star hotel in Taiyuan, as well as an apartment complete with a private chef and maids, all at the team’s expense.  The two sides met up again in Las Vegas in October while the team was training, but were unable to come to an agreement.

After Shanxi management returned to China, there was hope from the team that something would eventually be worked out, and they put in the business cooperation clause into the official contract as a sign of good faith.  However, when they sent over the new version to Marbury in America, he came out with even more requests: a $30,000 insurance policy for both his wife and child and roundtrip plane tickets for everyone.

Scared that negotiations would break down completely while the two were apart, Shanxi paid for Marbury’s plane ticket and met with him in Taiyuan, along with the team’s main sponsor, Shanxi Fenjiu, and the Shanxi provincial sports bureau.  After talking, the four pronged discussions ended with Shanxi deciding to give up their pursuit of Marbury.

He left Taiyuan yesterday.

Zhang praised Marbury’s 15 game stay with the team as “positive influence for the team, the fans and the league” and stated that he was “always our number one choice” for their foreign import spot.  But, among the increasing list of demands that Marbury was throwing out, the team also had concerns about his offseason training regiment and conditioning coming into the season.

“We had no idea from the time when the season ended up until training if he had worked out or not.  Whether he could play at a high level this season, we just didn’t know.”

“There isn’t one team that could meet these demands… There were some that we could fulfill, but we think that although foreign players can decide salary, they can’t have special or preferential treatment when it comes to deciding about life, practice, games, etc.  Athletes, including foreign players, should be treated the same.  Marbury’s requests made it hard for us to manage foreign players.  That’s number one.  Number two, last season, Taylor’s play last year was unsatisfactory, there’s no way we could have used him again for this season.”

“Emotionally speaking, splitting with Marbury was really tough, but as the club has to deal with reality, we have no choice but to operate within team rules.”