The Guangzhou soccer team, which is entering a new season, has encountered a lot of challenges despite its full preparations. Fans have demanded a refund from the club for ticket packages, and the team's home stadium for the new season has had twists and turns, and may be forced to move to an area far from the city center.
At the end of February, the CFA issued a consultation letter on the resumption of the home-and-away system for this season's Chinese Super League, asking clubs to report their home stadium options. The restoration of the home and away system has become the urgent wish of most Chinese soccer clubs. It is reported that Guangzhou Football Club responded positively and reported the stadium located in University City as its home ground.
For the past ten years, Guangzhou's home venue was the Galaxy Stadium, but because it had to undertake renovation work for the 2023 International Athletics Championships, it was unable to be made available for use by the Guangzhou team in 2022, and so it chose to move its home venue to the University City Stadium, which is more than 10 kilometers away from the city. However, like other venues, the Guangzhou University City Stadium is not provided free of charge, and rent has to be paid for each event. Currently, the Guangzhou team is financially strained, and it is reported that there are major differences between the two sides on the rent and payment methods, and the possibility of agreement is not high.
In this context, the Guangzhou team faces the possibility of a change of home ground. If Guangzhou University City Stadium is unavailable, the team may set their home ground at Huadu Stadium in the northern part of Guangzhou city. Last year, the four venues in Guangzhou for the Chinese Super League were Yuexiushan Stadium, Galaxy Stadium, Huadu Stadium and University City Stadium. Yuexiushan Stadium is the home stadium of Guangzhou City, so the Guangzhou team had to choose between University City Stadium and Huadu Stadium. Among them, Huadu Stadium is nearly 40 kilometers away from the city center, making it one of the most remote venues. Last year, Shanghai Harbour Team had a number of matches scheduled at Huadu Stadium, and it took more than an hour to arrive at the stadium from the hotel where the team was staying, even without traffic jams. For fans, this is the most inconvenient stadium to watch a game and one of the least preferred home venues for the Guangzhou team. It was also reported that Huadu Stadium was unable to play several matches last year due to drainage problems, which was a major reason why Guangzhou team was initially reluctant to choose Huadu Stadium.
However, if no agreement can be reached with the University City Stadium, Guangzhou will have no choice but to move their home field to Huadu Stadium for the new season.
However, for Guangzhou fans, this year may even be difficult to realize the hope of watching the game in Huadu Stadium, because of the epidemic, this season's Chinese Super League can resume home and away system is still an unknown.
