On May 15, Beijing Youth Daily disclosed that the city of Haikou has started the approval process for a group of matches for the new Chinese Super League season. The preparatory team of CFA and CFL plans to submit the final kick-off plan for the new season of the Super League to the relevant departments next Monday (May 16th). If the proposal is successfully approved, the new season is expected to start on June 3 and end in mid-November. If the 2022 Chinese Super League season continues to adopt the group tournament system, Haikou, Dalian and Meizhou will be responsible for hosting the four stages of the season. The opening ceremony of the new season will be held at the Wuyuanhe Stadium in Haikou, and the opening match will be between champion Shandong Taishan and another team in the same group.
Wuyuanhe Stadium in Haikou
Haikou has thus become the only target for the organizers of the new Chinese Super League season. on May 10th, a working group sent by the CFA and the preparatory team of the CFL conducted a comprehensive inspection of the training venues, competition venues and hotels in Haikou. Haikou city side also warmly welcomed the hosting of Chinese Super League matches. After completing the relevant approval procedures, Haikou Match Zone finally confirmed that it will host a group match of the new Chinese Super League season.
With the selection process of the three major tournaments completed this weekend, the CFA plans to submit the full kick-off plan for the new Chinese Super League season to the relevant authorities on Monday, May 16th. Once the plan is approved, the tournament organizers will send out official opening notices to clubs and relevant units involved in the league.
The new Premier League season will likely kick off on June 3, according to the organizers' plans. The exact time of the end of the season is uncertain due to the impact of the epidemic and other uncertainties, but the tournament is aiming to be completed by mid-November, before the start of the World Cup in Qatar.
This season's Chinese Super League is scheduled to be played in four phases. As the earliest the tournament can start is in early June, even if it takes up the June International Match Day cycle, this season's Super League schedule will face the challenge of playing 34 rounds of matches in more than five months, which makes for a very tight schedule. For this reason, the tournament organizers plan to play the first two stages back-to-back, i.e. shortening the break between the first stage (10 rounds) and the second stage (8 rounds) to provide teams with four to six days of transit time between the tournaments. It is expected that the first two phases of the tournament will be completed by mid-August.
According to the plan, the opening ceremony of the new Chinese Super League season will be held in Woyuanhe Stadium in Haikou district, which may be held on the evening of June 3rd. The opening game will be played between defending champion Shandong Taishan and another team in the same group. Previously, it was said that Taishan's opening match would be against Chongqing Liangjiang Athletic, but the organizers have not yet finalized the match.
As a result of the epidemic, the first and second phases of this season's Chinese Super League will adopt the group meeting system, and the matches will not be open to the public. During the game, all kinds of staff, service personnel and news media reporters related to the game will be arranged in the "anti-epidemic blue zone" and "anti-epidemic green zone", which is basically the same as the practice of the previous two seasons of the Chinese Super League.
As to whether spectators will be allowed in the third and fourth stages of the tournament, or even if the home-and-away system will be reinstated, no definite answer can be given yet. However, if the full-season tournament adopts the group meeting system, Haikou, Dalian and Meizhou will be responsible for the whole season. Of course, if one of the regions cannot continue to run the tournament due to force majeure factors such as epidemics or venues, the tournament organizers will start a backup plan.
