The Football Association completely denied Chen Xuyuan and Du Zhaocai, implicated Cai Zhenhua, and welcomed the new era of the Chinese Super League
On January 3, Beijing time, the Chinese Football Association officially announced a series of "new policies" for professional leagues at all levels this year in the new season management measures, among which the new policies such as increasing the number of foreign aid, allowing enterprises to name names, and allowing clubs to relocate were officially confirmed. With the implementation of the new policy, it also means that the Football Association not only officially "cuts" from the era of Chen Xuyuan and Du Zhaocai, but even shakes the "iron law" that Cai Zhenhua has always adhered to. From this point of view, the Chinese Super League and the entire professional football world will officially enter a new era.
Since Du Zhaocai took power in 2017, the Chinese Super League has been suppressing and restricting foreign aid quotas. After Chen Xuyuan took the stage, although the foreign aid policy of "Note 5 on 4" in the past was restarted from the 2020 season, Chen Xuyuan also imposed strict restrictions on the number of "naturalized players". At the same time, Chen Xuyuan also vigorously promoted the reform of the club's gender-neutral name, which has also become one of the most significant features of the "Chen Xuyuan era".
With the implementation of the new management measures, foreign aid and club neutral names, the two "symbolic" policies of the Du and Chen eras, have been completely stopped and replaced with a more relaxed and more in line with market expectations of the "new deal". The reason why the Football Association did this, in fact, it is not difficult to understand: from the perspective of marketization, Du Zhaocai's forced reduction of the number of foreign aid, Chen Xuyuan's forced promotion of the club's neutral name, are all in a wave of opposition, and now the Football Association completely denies the line formulated by the two, which is a response to the expectations of the outside world.
What is more surprising is that the Football Association finally allowed the club's relocation policy, which means that the notorious inter-provincial transfer of Chinese football in the past will be re-emerged. In 2015, Cai Zhenhua, the head of the Football Association at the time, shouted to prohibit the transfer of clubs across associations, and then from 2016, this policy was officially implemented. This is a "good governance" left over from the Cai Zhenhua era, after all, Chinese football was full of "Rangers" at that time, which was not conducive to the development of football culture, and the outside world had great opinions. However, now the Football Association is even calling for a halt to this policy, which shows that Chinese football is still facing a serious "survival crisis" this year.
After all, for many clubs, if they are not allowed to transfer "across provinces" and "associations", they will not be able to get better policy support, more financial sponsorship, and they will not be able to survive. From a certain point of view, the new policy of the Football Association is actually a compromise on the problem of "survival" in Chinese football.