Breakdown of the 2021 season's Central League fixtures
The new season of the Central League will be based on a tournament system and will be divided into four stages with a total of 34 rounds of matches (including rounds of 10, 8, 8 and 8 rounds of round robin).
Stage 1: Hosted in Chengdu Rongcheng, Meizhou Hakka and Wuhan Sanzhen, with the host teams being clubs affiliated with the member associations of these three hosting locations. 3 seeded teams were drawn by lot to determine the groupings, which were Groups A, B and C. The remaining 15 teams were assigned directly to Groups A, B and C based on their rankings for the 2020 season. The remaining 15 teams are serpentinized based on their rankings for the 2020 season and directly assigned to groups. Each group contains 6 teams playing a double round-robin in the same division with 10 rounds and a total of 90 matches.
Stages 2 to 4: The matches in each stage will be rotated from the first stage, with each stage divided into three groups and double round-robin matchups within the groups (teams from the same group in the first stage will no longer play each other). There will be 8 rounds of 72 matches in each of the second through fourth stages.
Regarding promotion places, there will be 2+0.5+0.5 places in the Chinese Super League this season. The top two teams will advance directly, while the third and fourth place teams will play a play-off against the bottom two teams in the Super League to ensure the expansion of the Super League in the 2022 season goes smoothly.
