At 6:00 p.m. Beijing time on March 29, Chinese Super League team Guangzhou City announced the suspension of its operations, which means Guangzhou City has officially withdrawn from the Chinese Super League, that is, it is directly dissolved. The Football Association announced the access list for the third tier league and Guangzhou City did not make the cut. Due to operational difficulties, this team with information in Guangzhou had to face the situation of bidding farewell to the Chinese Football League, hoping that the players and staff of the club can find a new employer as soon as possible. It is worth mentioning that Guangzhou City is also the fifth Chinese Super League team to dissolve in the last three years.
During Chen Xuyuan's three-and-a-half-year tenure as chairman of the Football Association, five clubs, including Tianjin Tianhai, Jiangsu, Chongqing Liangjiang Athletic, Wuhan Changjiang and Guangzhou City, were dissolved. Not only did these clubs quit the Chinese professional league due to mismanagement, but they also quit because the water in Chinese soccer is too deep. Let the remaining teams play. If you can make money, I believe many clubs will take the game seriously, but if you have continuous losses and Chinese soccer is at its lowest ebb, don't rule out the possibility of teams quitting.
Over the past 20 years, Chinese soccer has been on a downward spiral, with the gap between it and Asian powerhouses such as Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia widening. The era of golden dollar soccer seemed to be in its heyday. Guangzhou Evergrande got two AFC Champions League trophies, but the naturalization policy made Chinese soccer chicken feathers everywhere. Guangzhou has now become China's first division team. Will the overall level of Chinese soccer improve because of two gold-rich championships? The answer is definitely no. For Chinese soccer to be sustainable, it still needs to start with campus soccer and youth soccer, and do a good job in youth training. Judging from the U20 national football team's matches, China does not lack athletes who are passionate about soccer, but it lacks a good environment.
Chinese soccer is now facing a huge crisis. Starting from November 2022, after 13 years, the soccer crackdown strikes again. This storm is even more intense. Li Tie's arrest was just the beginning, then the top management of the Football Association fell one after another, including Liu Yi, Chen Yongliang, Chen Xuyuan, Wang Xiaoping and Huang Song. on March 29, former Football Association vice-chairman Yu Hongchen was arrested, former general manager of the Chinese Super League Company Dong Zheng announced that he was on the list, and Guangzhou City was dissolved. According to statistics, eight big fish have been arrested in the soccer world so far. All of them held important positions in the soccer world, but all of them were corrupted and their future was ruined.
In addition to the Football Association, the general manager of the Shenzhen team Ding Yong has been taken away for about 80 days. According to domestic reporters, Ding Yong is suspected of bribing Chen Xuyuan and Liu Yi 50 million yuan. There should be enough evidence now. Apparently, Ding Yong, like Chen Xuyuan, will go in for many years. It's expected that they will also repent. Why did you start earlier today?
Next, the investigation team will review the referees and the Super League match-fixing case is under investigation. If the referees are not involved, I guess no one will believe it and see who will be the first referee to be investigated. Moreover, the soccer crackdown case and the Chinese Super League match-fixing case are far from over. Chen Xuyuan and Yu Hongchen may not be the highest ranking soccer officials involved in the case, and there should be someone else behind the scenes, as the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection has already conducted a motorized inspection of the General Administration of Sport, so let's see if there will be any new breakthroughs in the coming days.
The new season of the Chinese Super League (CSL) will start in April, but since the competitiveness of the CSL is getting weaker and weaker, it is expected that many fans have stopped paying attention to it. But for the national team to be promoted, the Chinese Super League must get better and better. The helpless thing is, how can the league improve when the Chinese soccer environment is so great? This is caught in a vicious circle. If the national soccer team performs poorly in the preliminaries and the Asian Cup going forward, you can't blame head coach Jankovic or the players. After all, the industry is rotten to the roots. Lippi could not get it that year, giving up 100 million in wages to go back to Italy. Can you imagine that a World Cup winner can do nothing for Chinese soccer?
