May 31, the Chinese Football Association confirmed through official channels, the Qatar World Qualification Asia 40 Group A remaining matches will no longer be held in Suzhou, but transferred to the United Arab Emirates Dubai. This decision makes the original "home" game of the Chinese team had to play on the road. This sudden change not only adversely affects the national football team's preparation and game plan, but also brings problems to the scheduling of the Chinese Super League and other domestic matches after the 40-team tournament.
It is reported that, after this change, the CFA on the one hand, actively coordinate with all parties to create favorable conditions for the national football team to visit as far as possible, on the other hand, also speed up communication with the tournament alliance, consulting on the remaining matches of this season's Chinese Super League schedule matters. As the national football team to Dubai to participate in the earliest to June 16 to depart for home, the national football players back home also need to follow the domestic epidemic regulations for a period of medical isolation observation, so the restart of the Super League may be delayed, the specific start time may be delayed until mid-July.
In addition, the Premier League may also face a compressed schedule, and it is doubtful whether it will be able to play 30 rounds of matches as desired by all parties.
After the Maldives and Syria failed to board the flight from Dubai to Shanghai as scheduled due to the outbreak of epidemics in their respective teams, the CFA finally confirmed that all the remaining matches in Group A of the 40-team tournament would be moved to Dubai after communicating with the AFC. This has also adversely affected the Chinese team's preparation and competition.
Also affected by the change are the Chinese Super League and various other soccer events in the country this season. According to the previously confirmed schedule, the Chinese Super League (Round 6) will restart on June 21st. However, with the irreversible program for the national football team to compete in the UAE, many international players, who are the main support of the Chinese Super League clubs, have to face a realistic problem, that is, after the completion of the 40-team tournament on June 15 (provided that the 40-team tournament Group A matches have not been further postponed), the earliest possible date to depart for their home country will be June 16th. After returning home, according to the epidemic prevention regulations, they also need to accept a variety of epidemic prevention inspection and related long time medical isolation observation. In this case, I am afraid that it is difficult to restart the Chinese Super League on June 21 according to the established schedule.
On the evening of May 30, the tournament league preparatory group responsible for the game arrangement of Liu Jun also appeared in Suzhou Olympic Sports Center, the national football team and Guam team game site. It is understood that, before and after the confirmation of the news of the remaining matches of the Top 40, the CFA has also consciously communicated with the preparatory team of the tournament league and other relevant parties on the issue of league scheduling.
Informed sources revealed that from the current communication situation, the possibility of delaying the restart of the Chinese Super League is higher. On the one hand, at present, as one of the two major cities in the Chinese Super League tournament area, Guangzhou City, Guangzhou City, the epidemic prevention and control situation is particularly serious. Because part of the Chinese Super League games have been open to the audience, so the race organizers, the race area need to protect the lives and health of personnel as the top priority of the work, the need to carefully consider the restart of the Chinese Super League matters; on the other hand, once the international footballers need to return to their home countries to accept a long period of quarantine, then the organizers of the tournament must be from the protection of the perspective of fair competition, waiting for the international footballers to return home to their respective clubs healthy and safe! On the other hand, once the internationals have returned to their respective clubs and are healthy and safe, the organizers must wait for the restart of the Chinese Super League.
As of May 31, communication on related matters is still ongoing. However, from the time projection, once the Super League delayed restart, then the specific start date may be delayed until mid-July.
On May 31, a media outlet claimed that "Qingdao is now actively preparing to take over the Chinese Super League's Guangzhou tournament at any time." However, as of that afternoon, there was no official information to confirm the authenticity of this news. It is understood that earlier this year, some cities did put forward a bid to host the 2021 Chinese Super League season. And in addition to the cities of Suzhou and Guangzhou, which eventually secured the hosting rights, cities such as Wuhan and Dalian also made bids. And as of late on the 31st, the CFA and the preparatory team of the tournament alliance are still paying close attention to all kinds of information including the epidemic situation in Guangzhou City, but there is no detailed plan to move the tournament in Guangzhou to other places yet.
Another issue of concern is that once the Chinese Super League is postponed due to the national football team going abroad, the already dense league schedule will be even more compact. If the Chinese team can successfully qualify for the Top 12, then the team does not rule out participating in the home and away system of the Top 12 games, the Super League may also continue to "give way" to the national football team to prepare for the game. In this case, the league is difficult to play the remaining 25 rounds of matches in a limited time. In this case, the CFA, the tournament alliance preparatory group does not rule out the start of the "contingency plan", will be this season's Chinese Super League schedule compression. The specific system may refer to last season's Chinese Super League system, that is, after the first stage of the game, the 16 teams according to the first stage of the group stage ranking, respectively, among the title contenders, relegation group, until the final rankings of each group. And the relevant preliminaries have been previously released in the new season of the Chinese Super League matches to be clear.
