Super League relaunch conundrum revealed: the dilemma behind industry decisions

In front of the grand social background and reality, the recovery of the professional league seems to be extremely tricky. Although the Preparatory Group of the Chinese Football Association and the Football Association have been doing their best, and Beijing and other places have been affected by the epidemic, most of the staff of the Preparatory Group and the Football Association are in a state of closure and can not work normally, but they still keep close contact with clubs and regions to deal with related matters through online means. However, not all matters are in the hands of the Preparatory Team or the FA. In fact, there is a deeper issue involved in the process, namely the issue of jurisdiction and authority. In the past, when discussing the reasons for the failure of Chinese soccer to rise, the outside world often used the term "one set of team, two brands" to describe the management system of Chinese soccer as problematic. The introduction of China's soccer reform and development of the overall plan, clearly put forward "in accordance with the separation of government and society, clear powers and responsibilities, the principle of autonomy in accordance with the law to adjust the formation of the Chinese Football Association, to change the Chinese Football Association and the General Administration of Sport Football Management Center of the two brands, a set of people's organizational structure," clear Chinese Football Association and the General Administration of Sport delinked, and, in addition, the soccer association does not have an administrative level. Moreover, the soccer association does not have an administrative level. This seems to clarify the position and function of the Chinese Football Association as a legal person of an association. However, the ensuing problem is that the Chinese Football Association, as a legal person of the association, has encountered brand new problems in the actual development of China's society. Take the centralized tournament system that the Chinese Super League had to adopt after the epidemic as an example. When determining the tournament area, the preparatory group or the football association was always in an unequal position when negotiating with the local community. Because the preparatory group or the football association is only a community organization, while the local area is led by a government department, the local government department may pay more attention or be reciprocal only if the administrative sports authority takes the lead, which is determined by the whole social administration system in China. At that time, under the epidemic situation, the principle of "whoever organizes, whoever is responsible, and whoever approves, whoever is responsible" was adopted for collective activities such as soccer matches. As a football association or preparatory group, of course, can say "I host my responsibility", but the problem is that the football association does not have "territorial management rights", that is to say, the specific hosting area, the game does not belong to the football association, which there is a "management There is a "management gap" problem. Therefore, it is easy to understand why the preparatory team and the Football Association contacted so many cities in the hope that they would be able to host the Chinese Super League, the Chinese A League or the Chinese B League, but in the end not many cities agreed to host. In the current situation of preventing and combating epidemics, it is of course normal and easy to understand that many cities do not host the league, as soccer is not a top priority in the construction and development of an entire city. This is the reality of the survival of Chinese soccer. In the absence of the truth, I am afraid it is biased to simply blame Chinese soccer or the FA for the problems of incompetence, inefficiency and incompetent leadership, and to blame the FA for all the problems. After all, the Football Association is simply not possible to exercise government or administrative functions, is only a "community organization". Therefore, China's soccer wants a real breakthrough and change, how to solve this fundamental problem in the reform has been urgent. With the difficulty of determining the regions, the resumption of the Chinese Super League is also facing challenges. Although the preparatory team or the FA wanted the 2022 professional league to be complete and to ensure a home-and-away system as much as possible, the recurrence of the epidemic has forced this idea to change back to a centralized tournament system. In the case of the forced change to the centralized tournament system, the preparatory team and the Football Association had to look for new tournament zones, that is, they hoped to be like last year's Central League, the 18 teams participating in this year's Chinese Super League according to last year's results, in a serpentine fashion, divided into three groups, and then arranged for as many as possible to play a full 34 rounds of matches for the 18 teams. In that case, at least three divisions would be needed. Therefore, the preparatory group and the Football Association jointly formed the inspection team has examined the Meizhou, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Kunming and other cities, but a number of cities have withdrawn, and now the legend of the determination of the Meizhou, Dalian, two districts as well as to be determined in Shandong Rizhao district, which involves the local management problem mentioned earlier in this article. The determination of the competition area is not only the city location area of the municipal government departments to approve the consent can be, but also need to a higher level of government departments for approval, to fulfill a series of formalities. Only after the approval of the higher level of government will the relevant public security, epidemic prevention and many other departments be fully committed to cooperating with it. Only then can a city willing to host the event formally feedback to the preparatory team or the FA to clarify whether or not it will host the event. The process is quite cumbersome, just as Wuhan was rumored to be hosting the opening ceremony of this year's Chinese Super League, but Wuhan ended up not even being the venue because the process was not completed and the news spread first, which was ultimately embarrassing. On another level, the reason for the delay in determining the venue to host the Super League is another very important reason, and that is that both the preparatory team and the Football Association, the original intention is to host the event at a higher standard. After all, despite the conference system, the Chinese Super League is the highest level of Chinese soccer, during which there is also a problem of broadcasting to the outside world. A high standard will greatly benefit the image of the entire Chinese Super League, the image of the city where the tournament will be held, and even the image of the country as a whole. Compared with the Women's Super League, Women's A League and Women's B League, which have all been successfully opened or are about to be opened now, the requirements are not very high, because it does not involve the issue of external communication, so the matches are played in the base. But now, the Chinese Super League has been delayed in determining the district, from the organizers' point of view, or hope that the game can be arranged as far as possible all in the stadium, and this also facilitates the setup of broadcasting equipment, etc., in the hope that it will allow viewers and fans to see a better and more positive side of the league. In the trough of Chinese soccer people did not choose to give up in the face of reality, but it must be said that a variety of objective factors, off-field factors are often defensible, the so-called "ideal is very rich, the reality is very bone", and the plan will never be able to catch up with the changes. Like the preparatory group and the Football Association has been expecting this year's Chinese Super League in the end of the 12 strong, the national team back to the end of the isolation immediately after the full launch, expect to be fully restored to the home-and-away system, you can play a full 34 rounds. And all parties are working together, including the clubs playing in the AFC Champions League to send the youth army to play, but also in the hope of not affecting the domestic league. However, the epidemic rebounded and the pressure of epidemic prevention increased dramatically, so that all kinds of plans had to be changed again. Therefore, the scheduled restart of the Chinese Super League has been postponed indefinitely, which is completely beyond the control of the preparatory team and the Football Association. Including the two teams in Shanghai on the 7th and 8th have left Shanghai, Dalian, is also after many exchanges and coordination to be able to travel. Do not experience it, it is difficult to appreciate the effort. Another example is like how to deal with the Hangzhou Asian Games, the Association for the U23 national football team can better prepare for the war, from last year onwards planning, so that the team in March this year can successfully follow the national football team together with the west, and finally let the team after nearly three years for the first time on the international warm-up matches. Subsequently, how to better prepare for the Asian Games, the Football Association and the team has been meeting with the team, including coordination with the preparatory group of the staff of the transfer, the response of the league and so on. But now, with the official postponement of the Asian Games in Hangzhou, so that all kinds of previous preparations look to be doing useless, and the outside world will not mind how much this period of time, but the U23 team's preparations will not be because of the postponement of the Asian Games and do not need to continue. Frankly speaking, these objective factors, off-field factors can not be prevented. But no matter what, Chinese soccer still has to survive, and Chinese soccer people will not let soccer disappear from our society. The epidemic has changed many things in our society, but just as our country will not stop the pace of progress and development because of the epidemic, Chinese soccer will still be strong and survive, and this year's Chinese Super League will surely come back into the lives of fans and people.