Facing the challenge of "how to stop the loss in time, inject new life into the league, and reshape the image of Chinese professional soccer", the Chinese Super League has been drastically shortened in the past two seasons due to the impact of the epidemic, and the audience's wish to watch the game on site has been put on hold for the time being. Under the superposition of various unfavorable factors, the revenue of the Chinese Super League has declined significantly. As analyzed by Liu Jun, "The 2020 and 2021 seasons of the Chinese Super League adopted the match system, which greatly reduced the interaction with fans. The shortening of the schedule has directly led to a decline in all league revenues, including copyright revenue. Fortunately, sponsors' support for the league as a whole has been stable and most of the receivables have been collected. As a result, we have strengthened our communication with them in an effort to resist pressure and reduce deductions. In the new season, we will also try to minimize unnecessary expenses and achieve reasonable savings."
In order to revitalize the professional league, "open source" is more critical than "cutting back". Liu Jun explained: "Since last year, we have adopted a diversified sales strategy in terms of copyright cooperation. We plan to add one or two new copyright channels in the New Year. And it is our goal to increase revenue, expand influence and raise sponsorship income across the board."
Liu Jun revealed that the CFA preparatory group recently planned to distribute an average of a few million yuan per club from last season's league participation fees to the Chinese Super League clubs. Compared to a few tens of millions of dollars a few years ago, the Chinese Super League clubs single-season league "dividends", these millions of dollars may seem insignificant, and can not fundamentally solve the economic plight of the majority of clubs, but in the industry as a whole suffered great difficulties in the context of the clubs to give the "red packet! ", the CFA, the CFA preparatory group at least expressed the clubs hand in hand to tide over the difficulties, and actively improve the league's situation of sincerity. Liu Jun said, "Expect to use this money to solve the long-troubled clubs owed wages is not practical, but this fee can at least help clubs to maintain basic operations, in helping teams to maintain normal training is helpful."
Shi Qiang, head of the preparatory team of the CFA, also expressed the determination of the CFA and the preparatory team to "save the brand of the Chinese Super League" for the league's match system. Shi Qiang revealed that in order to promote the restoration of the home and away match system of the professional league, the CFA and the preparatory group repeatedly consulted the views of all parties, including clubs. In his words, "As long as there is a chance, we also want to restore home and away games." Shi Qiang also explained that, unlike the home-and-away system in the general sense of previous seasons, the league's home-and-away system, which is being pushed for the 2022 season, is a home-and-away system in the context of the normalization of epidemic prevention and control. In other words, the league's condition for resumption of home games must be anchored on epidemic prevention and control. He said, "For example, the league bubble epidemic prevention and management model, nucleic acid testing and other measures. The content of the 'home and away system under epidemic prevention and control normality' plan we launched is nearly 100 pages. The plan was developed in consultation with a panel of experts, including the Health and Epidemiology Department. Because if something goes wrong with epidemic prevention, the impact on our league will be devastating."
Guo Bingyan, head of the competition work of the CFA preparatory group, also emphasized that one of the important reasons for the new season's Chinese Super League stage differentiation using the "8+8+8+8+10" model is precisely to deal with a variety of emergencies, extreme conditions. "This is actually the most stable competition system plan that can be flexibly switched (conference system or home and away system). From our work point of view, will certainly fight for after this season's Super League after 3, even if the latter 2 stages to restore home and away, the league needs to return to the city. The league is everyone's league, so all parties hope that the winter is shorter and spring comes as soon as possible", Guo Bingyan said.
