April 20 – Wuhan Zall, the Chinese Super League team based at the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic, have made an emotional return to their home city after more than three months’ forced isolation.
April 15 – Arsenal has opened an official account on Chinese video-sharing platform TikTok, the world’s fastest-growing social media platform.
March 30 – Chinese Super League teams may have returned to training as a result of the coronavirus outbreak in the country easing, but it may not be so easy for the league to restart because of stringent travel restrictions for a raft of foreign players, plus the lingering threat of infection.
March 25 – After seemingly getting a hold of the spread of Covid-19, China, the country where it all started, is also the first place where football could be about to resume again.
February 24 – China will play their next two World Cup qualifying matches against the Maldives and Guam behind closed doors in Thailand because of the coronavirus in a further escalation of the outbreak’s disruption of sports events in the country and beyond.
February 14 – The AFC qualifiers for the Tokyo 2022 Olympics women’s tournament have been whittled down to the final four teams after Australia came back in injury time to secure a 1-1 draw against China and win the group on goal difference. Both teams go through to the final play-off.
February 11 – Manchester United are reported to have stalled talks over a possible pre-season visit to China because of the coronavirus outbreak which has now infected over 43,000 people (more than 42,500 in China) with more than 1,000 dead.
January 30 – The Chinese Football Association (CFA) has postponed all domestic games due to the coronavirus epidemic as the number of fatalities and infections continues to rise.
January 29 – The deadly coronavirus that started in the Chinese city of Wuhan and has killed over 130 people with 6,000 others affected has had an immediate effect on international football with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) changing the order of home matches to be played by Chinese clubs in the AFC Champions League group stage.
By Paul Nicholson
December 30 – China has announced ten cities that will host the Asian Football Confederation’s (AFC) flagship Asian Cup in 2023. Beijing will be the lead city.
December 30 – The Chinese Super League has introduced a salary cap of £2 million a year, a move that will redraw clubs’ transfer policies and spending. Domestic players will be allowed to earn a maximum of £1.1 million a year.
December 20 – Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil who tweeted about China’s detention and persecution of Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang province, has been removed from the Chinese edition of Konami’s PES 2020 video game.
December 16 – In an unprecedented move that illustrated the country’s sensitivity over human rights issues, China’s state broadcaster pulled Sunday’s Arsenal-Manchester showpiece fixture from its broadcast schedule after Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil criticised Beijing’s brutal crackdown on ethnic Muslims.
November 28 – A leading human rights organisation has denounced FIFA for awarding its inaugural expanded Club World Cup to China, saying football’s world governing body has totally ignored “serious human rights violations” in the country and is guilty of double standards by disregarding its own much-trumpeted policy.
November 11 – China-based football social networking and media app Dongqiudi has added Watford to a partner list that includes Manchester City and Crystal Palace, becoming the club’s official media partner in China.