On February 7, the 2023 Professional League Club Heads Meeting and the Summit of Club Owners of Chinese Super League, Chinese First Division and Chinese Second Division were held at the National Team Training Base in Xianghe.
At the meeting, the CFL announced that the 2023 season of the Chinese Super League will open in late April - compared with the past few seasons, this season's Chinese Super League and Chinese Super League will resume the home and away match system and abolish the U23 policy, which will be implemented for six seasons starting from the 2017 season.
Back at home and away, the fans are ready.
Everyone is looking forward to the home and away
At the meeting, the CFL informed the clubs - the new season of the Chinese Super League is scheduled to open in mid-April, according to a surging news reporter.
Considering that there are international match days in March, the national team will train and train in New Zealand and play two warm-up matches against the New Zealand national team at the end of March. After the national team match days, the players will need to return to their clubs for some bonding.
This is a reasonable start time. Meanwhile, the new season of the Central League A is scheduled to open in mid-to-late April and the Central League B is scheduled to open in mid-to-late April to early May.
For the past three seasons, the vast majority of the CFL has been played in a conference format due to the outbreak. 2020 and 2021 were all conference formats, and 2022 was played in a mostly conference format with some home-and-away matches.
Now that the objective factors are gone, it's time for the CPL to fully restore home and away.
After the resumption of home and away, the clubs need to implement home field related matters as soon as possible. According to the previous home and away rules, the Chinese Super League clubs need to report at least one regular home and one alternate home.
As a result of sitting idle for the past three years, some stadiums need to be rehabilitated to meet the needs of the Super League.
At the same time, there are some debt disputes between some clubs and local stadiums, which need to be resolved before the home work is implemented.
Of course, these minor issues won't affect the eventual recovery of the home and away games, but the club needs to address them in a positive manner.
"The club is still looking forward to getting back to home and away, especially as they haven't had the opportunity to play at their local home for the last two years."
Sources told Punch News, "Hopefully, with the resumption of home and away games, it will bring positives to the club's operations and fan culture building."
Currently, Shenzhen clubs have a lot of debts to settle.
Access will be very strict
February 10 to March 20, with the access system officially closing on March 3rd.
The Chinese Football Federation (CFF) will officially release the 2023 CFA Professional Club Admission Regulations on or around February 10th. The regulations require clubs at all levels to complete access training on February 13 and clubs to formally submit access materials.On February 20, the first batch of clubs to pay (all wages in arrears) will be announced in the first instance for a period of seven days.
March 3 is the deadline for clubs to submit their access materials, and access will be completed by March 20, when the tournament organizers will publish the access list.
It is important to note that the club must pay all disciplinary fines before completing the admission process, in addition to repaying outstanding wages.
As the problem of wage arrears has become the biggest factor plaguing the development of China's professional leagues, the CFA and the CFF have taken a firm stance on the accession process:
Once a team is unable to resolve its wage arrears, it will be disqualified, and the CFA is ready to participate in the Chinese Super League with fewer than 18 teams.
Shenzhen Football Club and Guangzhou City Football Club are currently having a hard time getting into the Chinese Super League, according to a surging news reporter. Both clubs have a lot of debts to settle.
If the local management does not move forward, the debt problem will certainly not be solved. At the same time, several management of Shenzhen clubs are also involved in the Li Tie case, and there is still a risk of being penalized for relegation.
Chen Xuyuan, President of the Chinese Football Association.
