This week, the Chinese Football Association has successively organized competition supervision and referees participating in the work of professional leagues at all levels in the new season to receive online training and assessment, indicating that the preparations for the opening of the new season at all levels of the league are further advanced. According to the latest communication between the Chinese Football Association and the Preparatory Group of the China Football Federation, the new season of the Chinese Super League strives to start as early as May 7 and 9. Affected by the epidemic, the selection of the competition area has not yet been fully implemented, but in order to ensure that the whole season event "does not cross the year", and at the same time take into account the "FULL 6 rounds of the FA Cup (a total of 32 teams participating)", the organizers of the event may arrange the two groups of events in the first stage of the Chinese Super League in the same area so that the Chinese Super League can start as soon as possible.
On Thursday, those who were among the candidates for the new season's Chinese Super League, Chinese First Division, Chinese Second Division, Chinese Champions League and FA Cup match supervision team participated in the online business training organized by the Chinese Football Association as required and underwent online assessment. At about the same time, the refereeing department of the association sent a notice to the local member associations, requiring all referees (including assistant referees) and referee supervisors who have joined the refereeing work in the Chinese Super League, China League A and China Second League in the new season to receive pre-season online training from April 24 to 28. It can be seen that the preparations for the opening of professional leagues at all levels in the new season are in full swing. According to the custom, the competition supervision, referee supervision, and referee will be assigned to each division according to the season and schedule after accepting and passing the business assessment. Due to the impact of the epidemic at all levels of the new season, the competition system will be followed, so these personnel must arrive in the division about 4 days to 1 week before the start of the competition.
Some of the referees and game supervisors involved in the training revealed to the Beijing Youth Daily reporter that as of April 23, they had not received a specific league (law enforcement) task assignment notice. This is because the start date of the new season of the Chinese Super League, Chinese First Division and League so far cannot be finally confirmed due to the impact of the epidemic. Judging from the recent communication between the Chinese Football Association and the Preparatory Group of the China Football Federation, they are making every effort to open the curtain of the new season of the Chinese Super League between May 7 and 9 as soon as possible. As for the start date of the new season of the Chinese First League, it is customary to be one week later than the start date of the Chinese Super League, and the start date of the Chinese Second League will be about a month later than the start of the Chinese Super League.
In fact, there are two main reasons for the delay in the start date of the Chinese Super League. First, at least 3 divisions are required for the first stage of the league's conference system, and 2 are still not finalized. Up to now, meizhou division has basically agreed to host one of the first stage of the Chinese Super League. As for the other two categories, the organizers tend to arrange the competition in Dalian and Kunming respectively. At present, the Dalian Division is still implementing relevant procedures for this matter. However, Kunming city is affected by the recent domestic epidemic, and whether it can undertake the Chinese Super League events is still uncertain. If Kunming City or other alternative competition cities are unable to host, then the Chinese Football Association and the China Football Federation Preparatory Group, in the absence of other options, do not rule out the possibility of concentrating the remaining two groups of events in one place. And if Dalian finally agrees to take over, then the two sets of events may be concentrated there. Of course, using the weekend time, the event organizers are still working intensively with the relevant alternative divisions to achieve relatively satisfactory results.
Due to the selection results of the division and the start date have not yet been determined, the specific competition schedule of the new season of the Chinese Super League cannot be finalized. However, the principles for the specific organization of work have been largely finalized. For example, in principle, the new season of the Chinese Super League will not be held on New Year's Eve, and strive to finish before the start of the World Cup in Qatar. The season is held in four phases, and no less than two weeks of breaks are planned between each of the two stages to adjust the teams and implement the transfer of the competition area. In addition, so far, there is no clear statement as to when the two Chinese Super League teams from Shanghai will be able to leave Shanghai and whether they can enter the division as scheduled. In this case, the tournament organizers will need to reserve sufficient matchdays during the league break for possible two-team event postponements.
It is understood that the 2022 FA Cup main tournament will be played in 6 rounds as planned (the 18 teams of the Chinese Super League will all participate from the main tournament), and professional league matches will not be arranged during the scheduled matchday of the Hangzhou Asian Games football match, so the time left for the new season to play 34 rounds of the Chinese Super League is very limited. However, in order to ensure the quality of the league, to avoid too many injuries caused by the excessive density of the league. In principle, the organizers of the tournament will strive to control the interval between each two rounds of the Chinese Super League to an average of more than 72 hours. Due to the limited selection range of competition areas and the frequency of use of alternative competition venues in each division, the idea of kicking off on the same day for each round of each round in each division of the Chinese Super League is not realistic, and each round of matches may be arranged in two similar match days, of which 1 match day is arranged for 1 match, and 1 match day is arranged for 2 matches.
Combined with the practical difficulties faced by the preparation of professional leagues at all levels in the near future, even the most careful planning often cannot keep up with the speed of change. Whether the Chinese Super League can start in early May as the organizers wish depends on the actual situation.
Text/Beiqing Sports Xiao Zhao