The venue is not up to standard and cannot be opened to fans, and there is no training base for players to travel between places.
Text/Photo by Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter Li Hongbao
On December 29, 2023, Yi Jianlian’s jersey retirement ceremony was held at the Dongguan Basketball Center. Huge posters, grand ceremonies, and Dongguan landmark buildings collectively lit up lights to pay tribute… The whole city was immersed in the joy of the basketball world. The many activities carefully prepared by Dongguan all show the city’s emphasis on and love for basketball.
Corresponding to the joyful atmosphere of Dongguan basketball is the loneliness of Dongguan football. The night before Yi Jianlian’s jersey retirement ceremony, the Chinese League One team Dongguan Guanlian Football Club officially issued an announcement. The team announced that it would leave Foshan and change its name to Foshan South Lions Football Club to compete in the Chinese League One in the new season. Foshan once again welcomed a professional football team after 26 years, while the flame of professional football in Dongguan was extinguished again.
Lucky to enter the 2023 Chinese League One season
Public information shows that Dongguan Guanlian Football Club (now Foshan South Lions) was formerly known as Dongguan Mayong Rongyi Football Team. It was founded in 2016 and existed as a youth training team at the time. In 2017, Guangdong Rongyi Football Club was registered and established. In 2018, the team began to form a team to participate in the Guangdong Provincial League and won the league championship that year. In 2020, the team competed in the Chinese Champions League and won the championship, successfully promoted to the Second Division, and officially entered the ranks of professional teams. In 2021, the club officially changed its name to Dongguan Guanlian Football Club and competes in the professional league.
Dongguan Wanlian ranked fourth in the Chinese League Two in the 2022 season and became the first team to replace the Chinese League One. Due to the withdrawal of other teams, Dongguan Wanlian was lucky enough to get a replacement before the start of the Chinese League One in the 2023 season. Qualifications to enter the Chinese League One and host the opening ceremony of the new season of the Chinese League One at the team’s home stadium, Dongguan Sports Center Stadium.
From receiving the notification of supplementary entry into the Chinese League on April 7, 2023, to hosting the opening ceremony of the new season on April 22, 2023, there is only 2 weeks left for Dongguan United. When the reporter visited Dongguan Guanlian Football Club at that time, the club’s staff were basically in a state of continuous rotation. At the team level, in order to enhance the team’s strength, the club urgently contacted two foreign players, Raoul and Onuebu, to join. In terms of stadium hardware and hosting the opening ceremony, the team maintained and decorated the Dongguan Sports Center Stadium in a short period of time. On April 22, 2023, the opening ceremony of the 2023 Chinese League One and the opening match between Dongguan and Guan United against Wuxi Wugou were held as scheduled. Sun Wen, Vice Chairman of the Chinese Football Association, was present to announce the opening of the 2023 Chinese League One.
Although they are new to the Chinese League One, Dongguan United’s performance in their first Chinese League One season was eye-catching. In the first opener, Dongguan United defeated Wuxi Wugou at home and got off to a good start. They tied and defeated strong league rivals Qingdao West Coast and Guangxi Pingguo Haruan at home, and also played a classic away game against Jinan Xingzhou 4:3. In addition, at the FA Cup level, Dongguan Guan United defeated Dalian Zhixing on an away penalty kick to advance to the third round of the FA Cup, and got the opportunity to compete with the Chinese Super League team Shandong Taishan… In the end, Dongguan Guan United finished third in the first Chinese League One season. A 7th place finish ended the 2023 season.
The 2023 season will not be open to the public due to stadium issues
In the first season, they successfully avoided relegation, which is really rare for a first-year freshman in China League One. For Dongguan Guan United, in addition to performance pressure, the home court problem in the 2023 season has always troubled the team – at the Dongguan home court in the 2023 season, Dongguan Guan United has never been able to obtain permission for fans to enter and watch the game. Each game can only Allowing a certain number of fan club members to attend the game by invitation has had a considerable impact on the creation of the team’s home atmosphere and the development of the team’s business field.
At the beginning of the season, Dongguan United decided to play its home stadium at the Dongguan Sports Center Stadium, which is also the only stadium in Dongguan that can host football events. Public information shows that the Dongguan Sports Center Stadium started construction on September 26, 1992 and was completed on October 15, 1994. It covers an area of 37,720 square meters, a construction area of 25,700 square meters, and a main lawn area of 8,250 square meters. A total of 22,191 seats are provided.
Due to its age and disrepair, the current condition of the Dongguan Sports Center Stadium cannot meet the requirements for hosting professional events under the Chinese Football Association. According to Zhong Qi, the head of Dongguan Guanlian (now Foshan South Lions) Football Club, the biggest problem with the Dongguan Sports Center Stadium is that it cannot meet the fire protection requirements for hosting large-scale events.
In response to this situation, the Dongguan Municipal Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism and Sports Bureau responded to fans’ political requests to allow fans to attend games in June 2023: “Due to hardware conditions, the Dongguan Sports Center Stadium does not meet the requirements. Regarding the current fire safety inspection qualification licensing standards, we are actively negotiating with relevant departments to successfully resolve existing problems in view of the current situation.”
In addition, when reporters were covering the Chinese League One at the Dongguan Sports Center Stadium, they also intuitively saw that some of the lighting facilities in the stadium were no longer working. Zhong Qi also said that the lighting conditions cannot meet the needs of night games, and Dongguan United’s home games in Dongguan are all scheduled to be played in the afternoon. Dongguan United started planning to find a new stadium as their home stadium when problems such as fire protection and lighting at their home stadium could not be solved in the short term. In the end, Dongguan Guan United chose Foshan Nanhai Sports Center Stadium as its new home stadium starting from the 10th round of the 2023 Chinese League One. The team name will still be Dongguan Guan United and they will continue to compete in the remaining games of the season.
The survival team left Foshan and changed its name to Foshan South Lions
Foshan Nanhai Sports Center Stadium is a newly built stadium with a construction area of about 27,000 square meters and 20,000 seats. It has a standard football field and is capable of hosting Chinese League One matches. After Dongguan Wanlian moved its home court to Foshan Nanhai Sports Center Stadium, it successfully implemented external ticket sales, and officially opened fans to attend the match against Shandong Taishan in the third round of the Football Association Cup on June 24, 2023.
After successfully completing the remaining games of the 2023 season at the Nanhai Sports Center in Foshan City, Dongguan Guanlian began preparations for the 2024 season non-stop. Zhong Qi told reporters that after the end of the season, Dongguan Guan United contacted the relevant departments of Dongguan City and Nancheng Street of Dongguan City to communicate and help solve problems such as the fire protection renovation of the team’s home court as soon as possible. The Dongguan City Culture, Tourism and Sports Bureau also contacted the team to discuss Stadium renovation issues. However, the stadium renovation involves a large amount of department coordination and engineering work, and the stadium renovation cannot be completed in a short time. The Chinese Football Association requires that participating teams must complete it before December 5, 2023 (Editor’s note: The Chinese Football Association later gave each club two days) Weekly buffer period preparation materials) to complete the submission of access information, Dongguan Sports Center Stadium obviously cannot complete the renovation before the access deadline to comply with the Chinese Football Association’s access standards. In order to survive, Dongguan United had no choice but to leave Foshan. In early December 2023, they submitted an application to change the name of the team to Foshan South Lions. After being approved by the Chinese Football Association, it was officially announced to the outside world on the 28th of that month. Dongguan lost its professional football club.
In addition, another reason that prompted Dongguan Guanlian to relocate to Foshan was that there was no training base in Dongguan for team training and youth training. It is understood that in the first five rounds of Dongguan United’s home games at the Dongguan Sports Center, the team members took buses from the training base in Sanshui, Foshan to Dongguan for the games. The players had to travel back and forth between Foshan and Dongguan, and Dongguan fans also Without being able to attend the game, Dongguan’s home court has actually become an “empty shell” with no home court advantage at all.
Editor: Wu Jiahong
2024-01-04 23:20:49
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