Original title: The most embarrassing season in the Super League
Tianjin Daily reporter Shen Wei
On the last day of 2022, the Chinese Super League bid farewell to the extremely embarrassing season. The chaotic competition system and the continuous abandonment of games in the final stage have made the Chinese Super League this season questioned by the outside world. The salary arrears of many clubs and the relegation of the Hebei team with negative points have highlighted the various problems of the Chinese Super League.
The Chinese Super League in the 2022 season should have been a watershed for the replacement of the old and the new. The “promoted” Wuhan Three Towns team won the championship, while the eight-time champion Guangzhou team was relegated. Such a selling point is enough to attract attention. However, the outside world did not feel much regarding this. The Wuhan Three Towns team won the championship trophy in a deserted atmosphere, and the Guangzhou team did not arouse tears from the fans, because their fate of relegation was already doomed.
In the last 3 rounds, there were a total of 8 rounds of abandonment, which also allowed the Chinese Super League to finally come to an end in a not-so-satisfactory way. Under the test of the epidemic, even though the Chinese Football Association has relaxed the registration rules and allowed teams to report young players to participate in the competition, many teams still cannot get the players they need for the game. It has to be said that when the event organizers are wandering between the home and away system and the game system, the health of the players is put on the back burner instead.
This season, the Chinese Super League has been expanded to 18 teams, but following one season, the Hebei team and the Guangzhou team only won 2 games and 3 games. In the context of the sharp drop in the investment of each team, the expansion of the Chinese Super League is an incomprehensible approach. In order to solve the problem of wage arrears, the Chinese Football Association launched a solution, but there are still Wuhan Yangtze River Team and Shanghai Shenhua Team who failed to pay back wages, so they were penalized.
Of course, the biggest highlight of the Chinese Super League this season is the resumption of home and away games following two and a half years. In the match between the Dalianers and the Shanghai Seaport team on August 6, the Chinese Super League finally “goed home” once more following 979 days. Subsequently, Wuhan, Huzhou, Zhengzhou, Changchun, and Chengdu also allowed the home team to return to home games this season.
Having survived the most difficult 2022 season, it is still unknown whether the Chinese Super League can get back on track. How to solve the problem of wage arrears will be a difficult problem for all clubs. In particular, the survival crisis generally encountered by various clubs will make the next Chinese Super League more difficult.