The East Stand

Chinese Super League season a triumph and a travesty

Coronavirus-affected format sees Wuhan Zall and Shijiazhuang Ever Bright hard done by despite mid-table form

Jiangsu Suning’s debut CSL title is a breath of fresh air but deposed champions Guangzhou Evergrande entitled to feel aggrieved

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Jiangsu Suning’s Mubarak Wakaso, Eder and Alex Teixeira celebrate with the Chinese Super League trophy after beating Guangzhou Evergrande. 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: 8:00am, 16 Nov 2020Updated: 8:00am, 16 Nov 2020

“It’s a game of two halves” might be the biggest cliché in football but the 2020 Chinese Super League, which finished on Thursday night, was a season of two halves.

The Covid-19/20 season as it could be known looked for the longest time that it was never going to happen.

February, when it was meant to start, came and went. Then the months ticked by with no sign of a solution for how the 16 teams of the CSL could possibly play their games.

Credit to the CSL suits and their brethren at the Chinese FA – they completed a season and in record time.

The champions celebrate with the fans in Suzhou. Photo: Xinhua

More impressively they did so with not a single Covid-19 positive since the restart inside two bubbles in Suzhou and Dalian. That was 23,000 tests in the first half of the season and thousands more in the second stage.

Millions watched on TV and they also got fans back in the stands with thousands watching on as Jiangsu Suning made history in their home province on Thursday to win the league.