A look at Premier League access for the 2024 season
The letter issued by the CFA on November 7 stipulates that clubs in the 2024 Chinese Super League, First Division and Second Division should submit their applications for admission to the new season by December 5th. In view of the actual challenges facing the survival and operation of domestic professional league clubs, the AFC and the CFA have jointly decided that clubs with problems will be given an additional two weeks to complete their applications. Accordingly, clubs were required to submit their materials by December 19th at the latest. As of the morning of December 4, most clubs, including some members of "difficult families", had submitted their entry materials for the new season.
From November 26 to 27, Suzhou held a working conference on professional leagues, in which the CFA and its preparatory team informed the music departments at all levels of the timetable for the new season at all levels of professional leagues. The new season of the Chinese Super League is expected to open on March 1 next year, quite a bit earlier than the previous three seasons, so the time nodes for the submission and review of access materials have been advanced accordingly.
On November 7, the Chinese Football Association (CFA) issued a notice on the access work for clubs in the Chinese Super League (CSL), Chinese First Division (CFA) and Chinese Second Division (CSB) for the 2024 season, aiming to standardize the access work of the member associations and to provide security for tournaments such as the new AFC Elite League. The AFC asked member associations' top and second-tier professional league clubs to submit their access materials to the official system from the 2023 season.
The reason behind AFC's move is the existence of contractual disputes, wage arrears and other problems in the Chinese Super League and First Division, which are frequent and actually increase the distrust of AFC's access to the Chinese professional leagues. As a result, AFC has put forward strict entry norms for the new season to the Chinese Football Association (CFA).
According to the Beijing Youth Daily, the CFA and its preparatory team have recently communicated with AFC on the issue of access to the Chinese Super League and First Division clubs for the new season. AFC agreed to give "problem clubs" a certain amount of time to improve the access work, but the maximum length of no more than two weeks. Therefore, clubs interested in participating in the new season need to submit qualified access materials before December 19th.
As of the morning of December 4, most of the clubs in the Chinese Super League, the Chinese First Division and the Chinese Second Division had submitted their access materials, but some of the "problem clubs" had only submitted basic materials, such as salary confirmation forms that had not been provided as required. At present, some clubs are facing greater difficulties in access, such as Cangzhou Lions Club of the Chinese Super League and Guangzhou Football Club of the Chinese First Division. The CFA and its preparatory team will announce the list of clubs to be admitted to all levels of leagues for the new season in batches according to the material flow.
