China: 2017 Ping An Chinese Super League season begins on Friday, 03/03/2017

The Guizhou HZFC - Shenyang Liaoning Whowin match on Friday, 03/03/2017, opens the 2017 season of the Ping An CSL (Chinese Super League), which will end eight months later, on 04/11/2017. The Guangzhou Evergrande club has won the last six seasons of this compeition.

The Chinese Professional Football League, founded in 1994, has been named the Chinese Super League since 2004. Ping An Insurance is the the title sponsor of the CSL for the 2014-2018 seasons.

The 2017 Ping An Chinese Super League involves 16 clubs, all located in the eastern half of the country, and will be broadcast in France by the pay-TV channel SFR Sport 1, in the UK by the pay-TV group Sky Sports, in Italy by the pay-TV group Fox Sports Italia, and in Germany by the Sportdigital channel. There is no current deal to broadcast the Chinese league in Spain.

In 2016, Chinese football clubs together made Chine the fifth-highest spending country (behind England, Germany, Spain, and Italy) in international player transfers (from one national association to another) with $451.3m (€429m on 31/12/2016), according to the FIFA…