Facing the same thorny challenges, such as "how to quickly stop the loss, inject new blood into the league, and reshape the image of China's professional soccer", the Chinese Super League, for example, the past two seasons due to the impact of the epidemic, the schedule has been significantly shortened, the centralized system of matches so that many fans can not be present, coupled with a number of force majeure factors superimposed on the Premier League, revenue significantly declined. Revenue has declined significantly. As Liu Jun said, "the 2020 and 2021 seasons of the Chinese Super League will adopt the tournament system, and the interaction with the fans will be greatly reduced. The shortened schedule has directly led to a decline in many league revenues, including copyright revenue. Fortunately, sponsors' support for the league has remained stable and the vast majority of receivables have been collected. As a result, we have accelerated our communication with them to minimize pressure and deductions. In the new season, we will also try to cut unnecessary expenses and make reasonable savings."
In order to revitalize the professional league, the importance of "open source" far exceeds the importance of "cutting costs". Liu Jun explained: "Since last year, we have implemented a diversified sales strategy in terms of copyright cooperation. We plan to add one or two new copyright channels in the New Year. Our goal is to increase revenue, expand our influence, and raise sponsorship revenue in all aspects."
Liu Jun revealed that the CFA preparatory group plans to last season's league participation fee of a few million yuan each evenly distributed to the Super League clubs. Compared to the tens of millions of dollars of Chinese Super League clubs a few years ago in a single season of league "dividends", these millions of dollars may be insignificant, and can not fundamentally solve the economic plight of the majority of clubs, but in the industry as a whole is facing great difficulties, at least you can issue a "red packet" to the clubs! ", expressing the CFA, CFA preparatory group and clubs to work together to tide over the difficulties, and actively improve the league environment of sincerity. Liu Jun said, "expect to use this money to solve the club's long-standing problem of unpaid wages is not realistic, but the cost can at least help clubs to maintain basic operations, in assisting the teams to maintain normal training is helpful."
Shi Qiang, head of the CFA preparatory team, also addressed the issue of the league's match system, elaborating on the determination of the CFA and the CFA preparatory team to "save the brand of the Chinese Super League". Shi Qiang revealed that in order to promote the restoration of the home and away match system of the professional league, the CFA and the preparatory group repeatedly consulted all parties, including clubs. In his words, "As long as there is a chance, we also want to restore home and away games." Shi Qiang also explained that the league's home and away system, which is being pushed for the 2022 season, is a home and away system in the context of the normalization of epidemic prevention and control. In other words, the league's condition for resuming home games must be based on epidemic prevention and control. He said, "For example, the league bubble epidemic prevention and management model, nucleic acid testing and other measures. The content of the 'home and away system under epidemic prevention and control norm' plan we launched is nearly 100 pages. Before formulating the plan, we consulted the expert group, including the health and epidemic prevention department. Because if there is a problem with epidemic prevention, the impact on our league can be devastating."
Guo Bingyan, head of the competition work of the CFA preparatory group, also emphasized that one of the important reasons for the new season's Chinese Super League stage differentiation using the "8+8+8+8+10" model is precisely to deal with a variety of emergencies, extreme conditions. "This is actually the most stable competition system plan that can be flexibly switched (conference system or home and away system). From our working point of view, we will definitely strive to resume home and away matches in the last 3, if not the last 2 stages of the Super League this season, the league needs to return to the city. The league is everyone's league, so all parties hope that the winter will be shorter and the spring will come as soon as possible", said Guo Bingyan.
