CSL and C-League Expansion

They have been talking about having some HK club take part in the mainland league for quite some time. But promoting the HK league winner to the CSL would be impractical, that would mean someone would have to get relegated from the CSL to the HK league to replace the team coming up, would it not?

The other points mentioned in Greenlions round up all round sensible, with the exception of bringing back the league cup, whats the point? We have had no FA cup for about 4 seasons, now its back, and rightly so, but why the desire to bring the league cup back?

 

i dont see any issues with league cup, the more games they play the better. at the same time, i dont see any pt in bringing HK team into CSL. they can do like a HKSL/CSL cup between the champions of the leagues if they want to promote interest but i dont see any benefit for a team to join.

 

I think the league cup would be a mickey mouse competition. If they expand the league to 18 teams, that means 34 league games a season, plus at least one FA cup game for each team, not to mention at least six ACL games for the top four.

So 40-odd games I think is enough. Although I would agree that previously, teams were not playing enough games. The FA cup coming back goes some way to reverse that.

For HK, I think it would be good for both the CSL and HK football if the top HK teams played in the CSL. HK football is too small to develop much higher on its own, and the addition of HK teams like South China into the Chinese League would add extra interest in the same way Toronto and Vancouver have done for the MLS.

 

If you take the best team from HK each year, then there will be even less interest in the HK league and it will hamper their development even more I think.

 

That is a very good point. But on the other hand, HK is just so small, its hard to see the league there ever being much bigger than it is now, so what's the way head for it?

I don't like to say this, but I tend to think city-states and tiny countries like HK, Singapore, Macau in Asia, and San Marino, Faroe Islands, etc in Europe dont really perform any useful role in international football. Certainly I think Canada and New Zealand have the right idea, putting their best teams into neighboring established leagues like the MLS and A-League. Surely if thats good for NZ and Canada, there must be some benefit for HK to think about something similar also? Perhaps just one team joins the CSL so that the HK league can continue on its own path?

 

I don't really consider HK as small. HK's population is 7mil and Scotland is 5mil and look how developed Scotland is in terms of football. In terms of football history, HK has the oldest league in all of Asia so ppl. Of course I'm not saying I expect HK to develop into Scotland one day but they have potential to develop more. I don't think we should mess with HK's league. Canada and NZ don't have a competitive domestic league that's why they have to put their teams in other league but HK already have one so no need to break it apart.

 

That's an interesting comparison. I'm actually from Scotland myself. HK does indeed have a bigger population than us, but of course, Scotland is quite a bit bigger in terms of geography. So there's more potential for rivalries, differences in different areas of the country etc. Until recently, I think all the teams in HK played in only one or two stadiums. So HK is always gonna be limited by its size I think. And is HK's league more competitive than Canada's and NZ's lower leagues? I don't know.

HK does have more potential as you say. But like almost everywhere else, the local league is not supported as much as it could be because casual fans think it sucks compared to the EPL, etc. Maybe an HK team doing well in the CSL would increase the profile of the HK league in Asia generally and in turn boost local interest in HK football.

 

Sounds just like China!

 

CSL teams def need more games. Just look at the performances in the last 2 round of AFC CL. Horrible against the weakest teams in the groups. the only reason I can think of is that the CSL season has started and now they are playing multiple games a week. The players needs to get use to playing more than a game a week.

 

Yeah all of the above, plus the significant # of timid, small built, hand bag carrying, HKese girly men parading from one Causeway Bay store to another may be a hindrance to success in football or any other sport involving any semblance of aggression. Obviously all HK men do not fit that description, but it's a factor combined with the heavy parental focus on education, limited open space, and other limitations.

 

Hmm, just read the thread, interesting thoughts going on.

What the Chinese don't need is to mirror the systems of Japan and Korea, lets think out of the box.

Bringing back a league cup? Not wise in my opinion, these competitions are generally used to try out reserve players. Although good for the manager to try out new systems etc, is it good to generate spectator interest in such a tournament?

Lets see how the FA Cup goes first, we can't just throw more competitions around all at the same time.

If it's more games you want, then surely they have to be more competitive games? I would suggest that at the end of the regular league season, the league is split into three groups, top 6, middle 6, bottom 6.

The top 6 get 5 more decent games against each other in title deciders, rather than an extended league that they generally play 4 more games against cannon fodder.

What the middle 6 are playing for is beyond me at this moment, but would need an incentive like the top side gets a playoff game with the last placed ACL qualfier for example or an direct bye to the further rounds of the FA Cup.

As for the HK league, well, if they join, they must all join, it can't be one or two, it has to be the full system, which in reality is just the 1st division as the rest of the league system is very amatuer.

What would need to happen is the HK league forms the bottom of the Chinese football ladder, in due course, two clubs are promoted, two are relegated to it, so what we would have within 3 or 4 years is two leagues at the bottom of the ladder mixed up with HK-Chinese clubs. If they're any decent HK clubs then they will surely filter to the top of the pile in no time.

Any thoughts anyone?

 

thank you, been a while since a read the Chinese threads, but what i've read sounds interesting and worth debating. I hope to spend more time here and learn more on the domestic fronts.

 

What do you mean? K League is completely different from Japan which has the league system identical to CSL...

I agree, FA Cup is enough at the moment knowing interest in Chinese football in China. Simply - there's no demand at the moment. FA Cup just started again, so what we're talking about?

Dividing the league to create more games is pointless for me. You suggest creating 6 teams groups... In Korea there are playoffs. But the regular season isn't more interesting because of that. It creates situation where the teams aren't fighting for the first, second and third place - most exciting thing of all in league system (most Korean clubs don't fight for anything - that's another deal). They'll fight for sixth or fifth. This means some will qualify earlier and won't give a f about the rest of the season. It's not exciting - it's dull for most of the season. You'll create about the same amount (or even more) of figting for nothing teams not in the middle of the table but inside those groups. So let's count - 2-3 teams in best 6 + 6 teams from the middle + 3-4 from the last 6. This gives 11-13 teams not fighting for anything (in this group will be the strongest and weakest teams - literally, those which are most exciting of all!). I like rather 5-6 teams from the top fighting for ACL spots (do they really fight? Well, in ideal world they should) and championship and 6-7 trying to avoid relegation from the start. Not to mention that about championship the consistency for the whole year really matters, not some 5 games at the end. Playoffs in leagues were always strange things for me. That's one of the things created artificially to get more from match revenues created probably by American spin doctors somewhere in the XX century who would like you to spend more money on the stadiums telling you it's more exciting. But it isn't fun at all. Creating games for relegation like it's employed in some Eurpean leagues (and soon in Japan) is good in my opinion. But not like 6 teams but 2 or 3 fighting for one spot.

 

What I mean by mirroring Korea and Japan is that they would be mirroring a similar league cup design, can’t China think of something different and unique that stands out. Not something, which could be boring?

As for my extra games scenario. I’m not really in favour of expanding the league, I don’t think the Chinese system is ready for bigger leagues, lets get the competitive smaller leagues right first.
But, if it is more games you want, I’d suggest more games against teams of a similar standard, that’s why I say breaking the league into playoffs, again not something I’d rather be a fan of, but I’d rather see that than top against bottom for an extra 4 rounds for example.
There will never be a system that pleases everybody, but I wouldn’t increase the league until we stop having yo-yo clubs or clubs that are consistently in the bottom half, these clubs need to break into the top 6 or 8 before we start calls for expansion. We need more strength in depth, not more clubs that don’t add to this.