Football Professionalism is an indispensable means to boost the football development in a country. Football professionalism reform implemented by China in the 1990s had a profound impact on the growth of Chinese football. As China's close neighbor separated by a strip of water, Japan also implemented football professionalism reform in the 1990s. However, over the past two decades of implementing football professionalism in both two countries, a tremendous gap has arisen between the two countries' football competitive levels. Up to today, the competitive level of Japanese football has ascended to the top in Asia, while China is still hanging around at the bottom. As for the same football professionalism reform, how could the disparity be so huge. In essence, there must be inherent causes. Therefore, in this paper, a wide range of research methods such as literature review methods, data comparison and analysis methods are employed to analyze, compare and study the football professionalism development histories both in China and Japan. Various problems existing in the development process of Chinese football professionalism are identified, hoping to provide some guidance and theoretical reference for the smooth development of Chinese football professionalism in future.