On March 14, the CFA released a notice on matters related to the player transfer registration work of the Chinese Super League, Chinese League A and Chinese League B clubs for the 2022 season through official channels, confirming that the first transfer window of the new season for the Chinese Super League and Chinese League A will be opened from March 15th to April 15th.
This signifies that the CFA and CFL preparatory team are pushing forward the preparatory work according to the scheduled arrangement for the April 23 start of the new Chinese Super League season.
However, due to the recent epidemic situation in some provinces and cities in China, the tournament organizer's working group of alternative venues for clubs at all levels of the field inspection work is suspended, the specific inspection task is temporarily by the relevant local member associations to assist in the completion of the task. Can the home and away system be successfully resumed in the new season of the Chinese Super League? The final result will depend on the development of the epidemic and the comprehensive situation of epidemic prevention and control work.
According to the official news of the CFA on the 14th, the first player transfer window of the new season of the Chinese Super League and the Chinese League A will be opened on March 15th, while the deadline is April 15th. This timetable and the tournament organizers previously launched, to April 23 for the new season of the Chinese Super League kick-off time node of the game plan coincides. This means that, up to now, the CFA, CFL preparatory group is still according to the scheduled plan to actively promote the new season of the Chinese Super League and other levels of professional league preparations for the start of the tournament. From the feedback of professional clubs at all levels collected by the tournament organizers earlier this month, the 18 clubs of the Chinese Super League and the majority of local football associations where the Chinese Super League clubs belong to have expressed their support for the resumption of the league's home-and-away system.
However, recently, including some professional league clubs registered places, some cities in China respectively appeared more obvious epidemic. From the perspective of safeguarding the health and safety of personnel, the tournament organizers have always made epidemic prevention a top priority in the execution of the opening work.
So, can the home and away system be resumed in the new season of the Chinese Super League? In fact, before this, in order to cope with the various situations that may arise, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) and the preparatory group of the Chinese Football League (CFL) have formulated four sets of competition programs for the Chinese Super League.
The second of the four packages received the main push based on the exchanges between the parties at the February 23rd league work session.
The details of the program are "a combination of home and away system with stage and group system". That is to say, with reference to the system of last season's Central League, the 34 rounds of the season will be divided into 4 stages in the form of "10+8+8+8 (rounds)". In each stage, 18 teams are divided into 3 groups. In each stage, a double round-robin of home and away matches is played within the group. At the end of each phase, the teams in each group are rotated, remaining at six teams per group, and then playing a double round-robin within the group.
It should be noted that, in the process of formulating the plan, the CFA and the preparatory group of the Chinese Football Association have been striving to maximize the restoration of the home-and-away system of the tournament. Only as a last resort, will consider the implementation of the past two seasons of the "match system". People involved in the preparation of the Chinese Super League also said that the epidemic prevention policy is a major national policy. The important prerequisite for organizing the tournament is to ensure the health and safety of the personnel. Therefore, while promoting the resumption of the home-and-away system, it is also necessary to anticipate extreme situations and formulate detailed countermeasures.
