The East Stand

Chinese Super League season no closer to starting as CFA look for workable proposal

Media report that no new proposal has been submitted to authorities for start of 2020 season in mid-July after initial rejection

Questions over format, foreign players and anti-coronavirus rule changes hang over any potential restart for football

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Guangzhou Evergrande celebrate becoming 2019 Chinese Super League champions. Players will not be allowed to hug under proposed 2020 rule changes. Photo: Xinhua

Formerly of the South China Morning Post, Jonathan White has written about sport from China for nearly 15 years, and covered the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the Fifa World Cup in Brazil in 2014 and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Published: 2:44pm, 21 May 2020Updated: 2:46pm, 21 May 2020

“No, no, no.” Just last month the Chinese Football Association were channelling their inner Dawn Penn in their plans for the start of the 2020 football season.

The “three noes” they listed were no empty stadiums, no shortened season and no extending the 2020 Chinese Super League campaign into 2021.

That was all ahead of a supposed restart in May. Well, we now know that come what may, there will be no football this month.

There is likely to be no football next month despite earlier reports suggesting a June start date and there may even be no football in July.

The latest rumours this week have either a start date in mid-July or the possibility that the season is scrapped entirely. As for the “three noes”, much like Dawn Penn’s place in the global charts, they seem to have been forgotten.