In today's spotlight, Beijing Youth Daily disclosed that the coming year's Second Division soccer league will follow the traditional system of qualifying in the first stage of pre-selection and the final stage of qualifying.
The Chinese Football Association (CFA) and professional leagues issued a draft of the "2025 CFA Major Tournament Schedule (Men's Soccer)" to clubs for comment on the 21st. The draft revealed that in the 2025 season, the Chinese Super League and the Chinese A League will maintain the pattern of 16 teams, while the number of teams in the Chinese B League will increase from 20 to 24 this year. In this three-tier professional league, the unique expansion action will be staged in the Chinese B League. The new season is scheduled to kick off on March 22 and end on Oct. 26, with 30 rounds of intense battles.
According to the promotion and relegation mechanism, the top four teams of this season's Chinese Champions League - Shenzhen 2028, Guizhou Chuksung Athletic, Guangdong Minto, and Guangzhou Anhua - will be promoted to the Chinese B League. Industry experts have analyzed that some investors in lower-level teams are wary of investing in teams that, once promoted, may bring more business opportunities to the clubs. If things don't go their way, investors can also choose to withdraw their investment or resell them to stop their losses in time. In contrast, the risk of investing in low-level teams is lower, which is also the reason why the heat of the Championship and League B has risen in recent years.
It is reported that the system of the new season is similar to that of last year, still divided into qualifying rounds and final qualifying rounds. 24 teams will be settled in the north and south of the two regions, to start a double round-robin competition. The top teams in each region (8 teams in total) will enter the final stage of the competition for the promotion quota, the remaining 8 teams (16 teams in total) will be organized into two relegation group, for the second stage of the showdown (round-trip competition between the two teams). Opponents from the qualifiers will not meet again in the second stage. In addition, the winning and runner-up clubs of the 2024 U21 League season will also qualify for the 2025 S2 League season.
