File: photo taken on November 12, 2020, shows Jiangsu Suning players and staff members celebrating after their team defeated Guangzhou Evergrande to win the Chinese Super League. (AFP) |
After three COVID 19-affected seasons, corruption and financial issues, Saturday’s start of the Chinese Super League marks a return to something approaching normal in the country’s soccer scene.
For the first time since the end of the 2019 season and the
subsequent lockdowns, bio-secure bubbles in designated host cities and empty
stadiums, fans will be able to watch their teams play at home and away.
Supporters will be present when defending champion Wuhan
Three Towns plays against Shanghai Port on Saturday.
“The importance of this game is self-evident, and the team
has been preparing for the new season well,” said Wuhan coach Pedro Morilla
ahead of the season opener. “I am sure that the players will go all out
tomorrow and play a wonderful game for the fans.”
Shanghai is, along with Wuhan, one of the few teams to be
relatively unaffected by financial problems.
“I know the expectations are running high,” Shanghai chief
Javier Pereira said. “What I really want is to get a trophy. We need to get
back to winning ways.”
It will be a relief if the talk stays on soccer through
2023. Three years of severe lockdowns, no fans at games, reduced sponsorship
and broadcasting revenue and a countrywide economic slowdown left many clubs,
some of which spent tens of millions on famous foreign players and coaches in
the previous decade, struggling to stay solvent.
In March, eight teams in the top three tiers of Chinese
soccer, including CSL club Guangzhou City, were disqualified by the Chinese
Football Association (CFA) from competing due to financial problems. In January
Wuhan Yangtze folded after being unable to pay salaries, becoming the fourth
top tier club to cease business in four seasons.
Chinese soccer is also going through one of its periodical
clean-ups of soccer officials.
“There is still a long way to go to eradicate the existence
of unhealthy practices such as football gambling and to strengthen the
education and oversight of young officials,” the Central Commission for
Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China and the National
Supervisory Commission said in December.
In March, the sports ministry announced probes into Wang
Xiaoping, director of the Chinese Football Association’s Disciplinary
Committee, and Huang Song of the body’s competition department as they were
both “suspected of serious violations” of law and discipline. A month earlier,
CFA president Chen Xuyuan was reportedly arrested on corruption charges.
“The soccer industry now has a number of problems, and it
fails to live up to people’s expectations,” said Gao Zhidan, director of
China’s General Administration of Sport in March. “Regarding the recent serious
problems in the soccer sector, there’s a lot of soul-searching to do. … We must
have systematic methods to tackle these problems bravely and fastidiously,”
It is a familiar story for fans but, after being starved of
live soccer, will at least have something to take their minds off wider issues
when the season begins. -AP
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