Chinese Super League
top tier of association football in China
The Chinese Football Super League (Chinese: 中国足球超级联赛; pinyin: Zhōngguó Zúqiú Chāojí Liánsài), commonly known as the Chinese Super League or the CSL (Chinese: 中超; pinyin: Zhōngchāo), also known as the China Resources Beverage Chinese Football Super League for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in China and the highest level of the Chinese football league system. Governed by the Chinese Football Association and operated by the Chinese Professional Football League (CFL), the league was established in 2004 by the rebranding of the former top division, Chinese Jia-A League.
Initially contested by 12 teams in its inaugural year, the league has since expanded, with 16 teams competing in the 2026 season. A total of 42 teams have competed in the CSL since its inception, with nine of them winning the title: Guangzhou (8), Shandong Taishan (4), Shanghai Port (4), Shenzhen, Dalian Shide, Changchun Yatai, Beijing Guoan, Jiangsu, and Wuhan Three Towns (1 title each). The current Super League champions are Shanghai Port, who won the 2025 edition.
The Chinese Super League is one of the most popular professional sports leagues in China, with an average attendance of 25,755 for league matches in the 2025 season. This was the twelfth-highest of any domestic professional sports league in the world and the sixth-highest of any professional association football league in the world, behind the Bundesliga, the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and Liga MX.
Overview
Competition
Unlike many top European leagues like Bundesliga, Premier League, La Liga, and Serie A, the Chinese Super League starts in February or March and ends in November or December. In each season, each club plays each of the other clubs twice, once at home and another away.
With 16 clubs currently in the Chinese Super League in Season 2023, each club plays 30 matches. There are 8 games every round, and a total of 240 games in the season.
“Chinese Super League” enters the record as top tier of association football in China. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chinese, Super and League can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q209318. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004, 2026, 2025 and 2023.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chinese Super League” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.