The Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) on Thursday announced that the CBA 2019-20 season will return on June 20, making the Chinese basketball league the first restarting major sports events in the country.

Meanwhile, China's state-owned sports channel CCTV-5 interviewed the country's basketball chief Yao Ming who gave new insights on the matter. 

CBA's work has just started

"2020 is truly a special year filled with unknown factors some of which went beyond our comprehension. Therefore, we did a lot of homework to ensure that we are ready to respond all possible situations," Yao said. "Our work has just begun and it's way too early to be relieved at the moment."

The rest of the CBA games this season, including the playoffs and the finals, will happen in two cities, Qingdao in east China's Shandong Province and Dongguan in south China's Guangdong Province. Yao expressed his gratitude for the help and support provided by the two cities.

Yao wants to make CBA a model for other sports

"I also want to say thank you to Zhong Nanshan and all the experts he recommended to us. Forgive me for not listing their names here. Based on their rich experiences in battling the coronavirus, they offered us valuable advice over how to bring the games back," said Yao. "They are mostly policies we have already been very familiar with, but what matters the most is to implement these policies effectively."

"For example, where do people have to wear masks, where they must have their temperatures tested, which areas are the green zone, which are the yellow zone, where should who be distributed to. We need to make a specific plan for all of these issues," he noted.

Yao stressed that the CBA wanted to make sure that every detail of the league returning project can be trackable, controllable, and more importantly, used in other sports events. Yao said that the league is trying its best to provide convenience to all the players, coaches, staff and the press.

"We have come up with some special policies for today's special occasion. We want a balanced league but fairness is just as important," Yao added. Like CGTN has reported previously, teams can choose to go with the foreign players who have already arrived or apply to suspend their use of foreign aid. If a team choose the latter, they can enjoy the benefits of having the opponents' use of foreign players limited in the game.

It's all part of a grand plan

Yao said that first the league must make sure that the 2019-20 season ends without a hitch before making plans for the next season. "We want the 2020-21 season to happen on time because that will leave us enough time to prepare for and participate in the Tokyo Olympic basketball qualification tournament," said Yao.

"We are confident in bringing things back to the right track with all the help we received."

(CGTN's Sports Scene contributed to this story.)