Explaining the complexity of the 2021 season's Central League fixtures
The new season of the Central League will adopt a unique tournament system with four phases, completing a total of 34 rounds of matches, i.e. 10 rounds plus 8 rounds repeated twice more.
First Stage: Clubs belonging to member associations in the three club cities will act as hosts. Three seeded teams will be drawn into groups (A, B and C), with the remaining 15 teams serpentine based on the 2020 season standings. Each group of six teams will play a double round-robin in their respective divisions for a total of 10 rounds and a total of 90 matches.
Stages 2-4: Rotation according to the results of the first stage, double round robin within three groups in each stage, but the same teams in the first stage will not play each other again. Each of the second to fourth stages will consist of eight rounds, totaling 72 matches.
Regarding the promotion places, the Central League will offer 2+0.5+0.5 this season. The top two teams will be promoted directly, while the third and fourth places will have to play a play-off against the last two teams in the Chinese Super League, thus completing the expansion plan of the Chinese Super League.
