2004 Chinese Super League

Promotion and relegation

Teams promoted from 2003 Jia-B League

• None

Teams relegated after end of 2003 Jia-A League

• Chongqing Qiche (Merged with Yunnan Hongta)
• August 1st
• Shaanxi Guoli

Overview

The first Chinese Super League (CSL) season was greeted with great enthusiasm by the media and the FA, with the decision to create a new top tier league in China made in order to freshen up Chinese football. The previous ten seasons of the old Chinese first division had been successful and had improved the quality of play in China. However, the Chinese Football Association felt that a change was needed to give Chinese football a further boost.

The decision to create the Chinese Super League was made before the 2003 Chinese season and of the 15 First Division teams competing in the 2003 season, it was decided that three teams would be relegated with no promotion at all from the second tier league. The remaining 12 teams would compete in the inaugural Super League season, which saw Chongqing Qiche remain within the league despite being relegated after they merged with seventh place team Yunnan Hongta.

It was planned that one team would be relegated with two teams to be promoted into the CSL at the end of the season but the relegation was cancelled halfway through and so for the second season the Super League had 14 teams.

Controversy

There were many controversial events during the season, including the discovery that some players were betting against their own teams and deliberately losing games. Some referees were also suspected of fixing matches by awarding dubious penalties and handing out cards freely.

The most notorious incidents happened during two matches, a Round 14 game involving Beijing Hyundai and a Round 17 game involving Dalian Shide: in the respective matches, the players were unhappy about the refereeing, and they protested by walking off and abandoning the match. The CFA handed out punishments with a three-point deduction for Beijing Hyundai and a six-point deduction for Dalian Shide: their opponents were also awarded a 3-0 victory.

Upsets

The season produced one of the biggest upset in Chinese football history. Shenzhen Jianlibao, coached by Zhu Guanghu, was facing financial problems and owed its players several months of salary. However, they still managed to finish as champions and even more remarkably, their defence only conceded 13 goals in 22 matches, the least in the league.

Another team causing an upset at the wrong end of the table was Shanghai Shenhua who had been Champions in the previous season and during the 2004 season had played in the prestigious AFC Champions League. However, they played poorly in the 2004 season and finished 3rd from bottom, only 1 point above bottom placed team, Chongqing Qiche. If there had been relegation in the season, Shanghai would have found themselves battling against the drop.

Personnel

Foreign players

The number of foreign players is restricted to three, but all teams can only use two foreign players on the field in each game. Players from Hong Kong, Macau and Chinese Taipei are deemed to be native players in CSL.

• Players name in bold indicates the player is registered during the mid-season transfer window.
• Players in italics were out of the squad or left the club within the season, after the pre-season transfer window, or in the mid-season transfer window, and at least had one appearance.

League table

Top scorers

Attendances

League

• Total attendance: 1,430,600
• Average attendance: 10,838

Clubs

References

References

1. [https://www.rsssf.org/tablesc/china04.html China 2004] {{webarchive. link. (2012-09-29 at rsssf.com 7 Apr 2005 Retrieved 2013-01-08)
2. {{usurped. zh