The new season of the Central League fixtures revealed: four stages of the club system, 34 rounds of intense fighting
In the just-concluded 2021 season, the Central League adopted a brand new conference system, and the whole season was divided into four stages with a total of 34 rounds of fierce battles (including 10 rounds + 8 rounds + 8 rounds + 8 rounds).
Let's start with the first stage, which saw the creation of three host clubs - Chengdu Rongcheng, Meizhou Hakka and Wuhan Sanzhen. The three seeded teams were drawn to determine Groups A, B and C, while the remaining 15 teams were serpentined into Groups A, B and C based on their rankings for the 2020 season. Each group is clustered in their respective divisions, with six teams in each group in a double round-robin format, totaling 10 rounds of matches and producing 90 exciting matchups.
For the next stages 2 to 4, teams will rotate according to their first stage placings, with a double round robin confrontation within each group, and no further matches between teams from the same group in stage 1 will be played. Stages 2 through 4 will feature eight rounds of matches each, totaling 72 games.
As for the promotion places in this season's Central League, they are set at 2+0.5+0.5. Specifically, the top two teams will be promoted directly, while the third and fourth-ranked teams will play a play-off against the bottom two and third-ranked teams in the Chinese Super League, paving the way for the expansion of the Chinese Super League in the 2022 season.
