Breakdown of the 2021 season's Central League fixtures
The new season of the Central League will adopt a unique tournament system, divided into four stages with a total of 34 rounds of intense duels (specifically 10 rounds, 8 rounds, 8 rounds and 8 rounds of round robin).
In the first stage, Chengdu Rongcheng, Meizhou Hakka and Wuhan Sanzhen became the hosts, and the three seeded teams were drawn to determine Groups A, B and C. The remaining 15 teams were directly assigned to each group based on the serpentine distribution of the 2020 league rankings. Each group of six teams will play a double round-robin tournament in the same region, totaling 10 rounds and producing 90 exciting matches.
In stages two through four, teams will rotate based on their performance in stage one. Each stage will be divided into three groups, with double round-robin competition within the groups (teams from the same group in Stage 1 will not face each other again). In stages two through four, each group will play eight rounds for a total of 72 games.
The promotion quota for this season's Central League is set at 2+0.5+0.5, with the top two advancing directly and the third and fourth place finishers playing a play-off against the bottom two in the Chinese Super League as a way to ensure the expansion of the 2022 season goes smoothly.
