The U19 national youth team confirmed that it will compete in the new season of the Chinese Second Division, and the Chinese Second Division will adopt the tournament system throughout the season

Affected by the epidemic, the first stage of the new season of the Chinese Super League and the Chinese League A will adopt a centralized competition system, and then strive to restore the home and away system when conditions such as epidemic prevention permit. However, due to the limited financial strength of the clubs in the new season, the Chinese Second League has confirmed the adoption of the tournament system throughout the season. During the online work meeting of the professional league on the 3rd of this month, the preparatory group of the China Football Federation also confirmed that the 2003 age group U19 national youth team will be ironclad to participate in the new season of the Chinese Second Division.

At the league work conference held on the 3rd, the preparatory group of the China Football Federation announced the list of clubs that passed the qualification review of the Chinese Super League, the Chinese First Division and the Chinese Second Division in the new season, and the number of clubs that "passed the pass" in the preliminary examination of the 3rd League was 18, 17 and 22 respectively. Of the 22 clubs eligible for China Serie B, 5 qualify for promotion to The Second Division through last season's Champions League (and play-offs).

According to the original vision of the Chinese Football Association and the Preparatory Group of the China Football Federation for the structure of the 3rd division professional league in the new season, the participation scale of the Chinese Super League, the Chinese First Division and the Chinese Second Division clubs was 18, 18 and 24 teams respectively, with a total of 60 teams participating. However, due to various objective factors, the number of club teams that eventually join the participating squad is likely to be "reduced". The specific "capacity reduction" will most likely appear in the Chinese Second League.

Taking the access qualification review work as an example, there are only 22 clubs that have been admitted to the new season of the Chinese Second League, and whether the teams of these 22 clubs can participate in all of them depends on the conditions of their submission of the participation confirmation letter. Although the Chinese Second League starts later than the Chinese Super League and the Chinese First League, in order to deal with the problem of wage arrears that have plagued the leagues at all levels for a long time, the Chinese Football Association and the China Football Federation strictly require clubs at all levels to clarify the details of wage arrears (including specific amounts) in the participation confirmation letter, the proportion and specific amount of wage arrears at 3 specified time points, and at the same time stamp the official seals of clubs and relevant departments on the letter to ensure the integrity of participation.

It is worth noting that the Preparatory Group of the Chinese Football Association and the China Football Federation also requires that clubs participating in the new season of the Chinese Second League must submit a deposit of 600,000 yuan before the start of the tournament according to the deadline. This amount has been reduced by more than half from the margin limit of 1.5 million yuan in previous quarters. If the club cannot even pay such a low deposit, then naturally it will not be able to win the trust of the event organizers.

The sharp reduction in the margin for participation in the Chinese Second League is also inseparable from a realistic background, that is, due to factors such as the epidemic and the unstable investment environment, a considerable number of Second League clubs have struggled in the operation process in the past few seasons. It is not uncommon for clubs to say goodbye during the season, which has had a very negative impact on the order of the league, the fairness of competition and the operating environment.

In the view of the Chinese Football Association, the Preparatory Group of the Chinese Football Federation and the participants of the professional league, an important premise for the Chinese Super League, as the "spire" of the league, is to do a solid job in the construction of the middle and low-level leagues as the "tower base". We cannot blindly reduce the access standards and barely meet the needs of the scale of leagues at all levels to "make up the number". From this point of view, the organizers of the tournament should not let some low-level club teams struggle to be half dead, but should strictly control the quality of the participating teams before the start of the league.

At present, of the 22 clubs that have qualified for the new season's China Second League, 5 are from last season's China Champions League, which is close to 1/3 of the 16 participating clubs in the final stage of the Chinese Champions League last season. Then once some of the 22 clubs are still unable to submit confirmation letters that meet the requirements of the rules, it will be difficult for the organizers to further lower the "threshold" and arrange for clubs with lower rankings in the championship last season to be added to the second division.

It is also worth noting that regardless of the size of the Participation in the Chinese Second Division, the 2003 age group U19 national youth team has confirmed its participation in this season's Chinese Second Division. For the participation of national teams in professional leagues, the controversy from the outside world has always been large. However, due to the impact of the epidemic, except for the national men's football team participating in the World Preliminary Tournament and the U23 national football team participating in the Dubai Cup Invitational Tournament not long ago, other national men's football teams have not participated in international competitions for several consecutive years. In the past two years, the 2001 national youth team, that is, the Paris Olympic age team, has participated in the Chinese Second League for two consecutive seasons. Although the team does not participate in the promotion and relegation competition, in terms of the number and quality of the games, the training value of this team is still large. Judging from the rankings of this team in the middle and lower reaches of the Central League in the past two seasons, their participation will not damage the competitive quality of the league itself.

To this end, after communicating with the preparatory group and the club side of the China Football Federation, the Chinese Football Association finally decided to arrange for the new U19 national youth team in the 2003 age group to participate in the new season of the Chinese Second Division, so as to accumulate practical experience for this team to participate in the U20 Asian Cup qualifiers in the second half of this year. As in previous seasons, the national youth team will not participate in the promotion and relegation competition in the Chinese Second League this season.

As for the national youth team in the 2001 age group, it has been confirmed that it will not be able to participate in the new season of the Chinese League One. How they ensure the quality of preparation before the start of the Olympic Preliminary Round has still caused headaches for all parties.

Another point to be noted is that the new season of the Chinese Second League has confirmed the use of the tournament system throughout the season. The arrangement made by the Preparatory Group of the Chinese Football Association and the China Football Federation is also caused by actual conditions. On the one hand, at the moment of the epidemic, the 3rd professional leagues have to start in a tournament system; on the other hand, after extensive research, the organizers have found that it is difficult for the Chinese B clubs to meet the financial needs of participating in home-and-away matches with their respective financial capabilities.

Text/Beiqing Sports Xiao Zhao