On the 23rd, a "business letter on the resumption of home and away games in the 2022 professional league" attracted widespread attention. Many media and fans have been greatly inspired by this, and directly called for the new season of the Chinese Super League to restore the home and away system. So, is this message true?
First of all, it needs to be clear that many people ignore the word "business letter". To put it bluntly, this is just a step for the FA to ask for directions, a document summarizing the opinions of the participating clubs. It is obviously too early to say that the home and away system will be restored. Let's analyze the contents of the business letter. The first article reads, "All clubs and registered members are invited to jointly report to the territorial government to give support and assistance in the epidemic prevention work and competition work in the home area, and submit the written confirmation form to the Chinese Football Association after stamping the official seal in accordance with the prescribed time, and submit the consent letter of the relevant department of the local government where the game is located in the follow-up." ”
The first article mentions several keywords, "territorial government", "support and assistance" and "consent letter", it is clear that in the context of normalization of epidemic prevention and control, the Football Association has the right to change the league from a home-and-away system to a tournament system, but does not have the right to change the tournament system to a main away system. Clubs want to get back to home games not only to wait for news from the Fa but also to obtain the consent of the territorial government. The 16 teams in the Chinese Super League, involving more than ten provinces and municipalities, have different epidemic prevention measures in various places, and have different attitudes towards hosting large-scale gathering events, and it is probably not an easy task to obtain a consent letter from the local government in a short period of time.
Let's take a look at the second content, "The home area of each club shall meet the "2022 Professional League Home Competition Work Requirements", including but not limited to the member association of the place of registration responsible for the home event and the specific organization and management, the main competition field requirements, the standby competition field requirements, the training venue requirements, etc." "The above content is mainly to redefine the obligations and responsibilities that the club needs to fulfill after returning to the home game.
Simply put, the restoration of the home-and-away system means that the club will have to invest more money, such as the cost of using the venue, the cost of security during the game, the cost of eating, living and traveling to the away game, providing training venues for the away team, etc. It can be said that in terms of the match system, the resumption of home and away games will make clubs face greater expenses, and under the premise that most teams are facing financial difficulties, the possibility of this letter of discussion finally reaching an agreement will not be very large.
Finally, we look at the feasibility of restoring home and away from the perspective of players and fans. For the players, in fact, the resumption of home and away games does not have much positive impact on them. Even if they can return to the home game, their life can not get rid of the closed-loop management, so their increased "joie de vivre" is only to take transportation between home and away. For fans, the restoration of home and away systems does not mean that fans are allowed to enter. Even if the grandstand is limited, I am afraid that only nucleic acid testing can make many fans choose to stay at home. And if ticket sales are not good, why should the club force itself back to the home game?
Based on comprehensive analysis, the FA has now developed the idea of restoring home and away, which is only a simple first step. There is still a lot of work to be done to really go from idea to implementation, and there are still a lot of problems to be solved. Judging from the current epidemic prevention situation, club funds, and fans' willingness to watch the ball on the spot, the possibility of the Chinese Super League resuming the home-and-away system in the new season is very small.