Chinese Football Fandom: Growing With the Changing Chinese Society

Abstract

This chapter explores how the development of football fandom for the Chinese national team and local football clubs is strongly associated with societal changes. Although the performances of Chinese football teams, especially the national team, have failed to impress the world, football remains the most popular because of millions of supporters with loyalty and passion. Most studies related to fans mainly focus on the economic and political implications of spectatorship along with the rise of China. Nevertheless, few articles are available to answer the fundamental questions, such as ‘When did these supporters come out?’ and ‘What were the factors of the development of fandom?’. By going through archival records and published documents over the last decades, this chapter offers a comprehensive and historical analysis of the development of football fandom in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and deals with these unanswered questions. As such, this chapter does not intend to be the most authoritative one but is one of the rare sources to lay down the foundation for research on Chinese football fandom. Furthermore, this chapter also proves that studies on football fandom can be a useful window for observing Chinese society.

Citation

Jiang, K. and O'Callaghan, L. (2024), "Chinese Football Fandom: Growing With the Changing Chinese Society", Tian, E. and Wise, N. (Ed.) The Mediating Power of Sport (Research in the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 21), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 73-98. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1476-285420240000021005