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China is the last major East Asian football (Chinese: 足球; pinyin: zuqiu) power to start a professional football league. Football has been one of the most well supported sports in China ever since it was introduced in the 1900s. The game has developed steadily, culminating in the historic World Cup qualification for the men's national team in 2002 held in Japan and Korea.

Contents 1 Professional league 2 Foreign leagues 3 National team 4 Media coverage 5 References 6 See also 7 External links

From 1994 to 2004, the top flight of professional football was "Jia A" (Chinese: "甲A"; Jia in Chinese means top). It consisted of 12 teams initially and almost every team was owned by its local football association and sponsored by a major company, with the company's name being also the team's name. This practice remains to this day.

As "Jia A" was introduced to the public for first time in 1994, the reception was more than warm. Attendance averaged above 15,000 week in week out and the league received unprecedented coverage in the mainstream media. Two national news papers, "Soccer" and "Sports Weekly (now Daily)", specialising in the reporting of football grew in popularity thanks largely to the fledgling league.

The league progressed well, with Dalian Wanda (now Shide) winning the league title in 1994, 1996 and 1997 with Shanghai Shenhua picking up their one of only two top flight titles in 1995 thanks largely to the contribution of former Asian Player of the year and commanding defender Fan Zhiyi, who interestingly played upfront, scored 14 goals and ended the season as top scorer.

The flagship product of Chinese football, the men's national team, failed to reach the World Cup again in 1997 under the guidance of local coach Qi Wu Sheng. As a result attendance to the domestic league plummeted. Frustrated fans were turned off by the perceived low playing standard. Suspected cases of match fixing coupled with alleged poor administration threatened to further diminish the paying fan base.^[1][2] However Jia A remained a viable product to the day it gave way to the Chinese Super League.

The Chinese football market is an incredibly fickle one, despite the complete lack of any real competition. One example is the Guangzhou Taiyangsheng team from the major commercial centre of southern China. Its debut in the inaugural season of Jia A is nothing short of successful. The players from Guangzhou are renowned for their cultured footwork, however their physical stamina and endurance cannot be commended. Even though the team is usually only capable of putting on 45 minutes of good football, they were able to wiggle their way to the top of the table thanks in no small part to their agile and skillful wingers, who had torn opposing defences apart with regularity. Forward Hu Zhi Jun, nicknamed Chilli, was in sensational form. He goal-poached his tally to 17 for the season and earned himself plenty of senior national team call-ups along the way. It was no surprise that, due to the team's success, attendance was high in Guangzhou's Yuexiushang Stadium. However, Taiyangsheng sold their reserve/youth team to Songre for $20 million yuan and the talent pipe soon dried up. Old legs were not replaced by younger ones and were forced to play on pass their expiry date. In the first season they came second, then fifth and middle table mediocrity and then, inevitably, relegation to Jia B. Attendance followed a similar pattern: 15000, 8000, 1000 then nil. There was to be no loyalty of any kind from the fans. Life in Jia B was not easy either, attendance could only creep past 200 for a team from the city of six million people. It was naturally labelled a disgrace. However, their former reserve team Guangzhou Songre replaced them in the top flight. However, Guangzhou, one of China's most economically advanced cities, would lack a top-flight representation for much of the first decade in the 21st century.

To be fair, the teams near the top of the table consistently gets good crowds in the tens of thousands. But mid-table teams can only attract a hardcore 3000 to 8000 while relegation battlers can manage just about 1000.

Chinese football have until now resisted true market economy values. For one, the Football Association of China is a government entity, not an independent company. The league also is not administered by independently. The Chinese FA often sets the league into recess so the national team can prepare for major tournaments.

On a more basic level, teams failed to nurture true loyal fans and ties with their local communities are minimal. Teams often change their names from season to season as major sponsors go bankrupt or were unwilling to participate in the overly expensive football market. As a result building a strong brand name remain extremely difficult. In the 10 years of Jia A, only Shanghai Shenhua kept its name to this day, even 7 time champion Dalian changed its name from Wanda to Shide.

Financial viability is almost a non-concern for choosing the locations of teams. Often, a "big boss" buys a team because he loves football. Millions are spent with no sizable return in sight. It is obviously unsustainable. But such teams continue to exist, as the local governments often are willing to offer huge tax incentives to keep a team in the city. This has led to the volatile situation where if the local mayor is replaced, and the policy changes, the team may suddenly become unprofitable.

Marketing of the league has often been criticised as disoriented. To be fair, China is a vast country and tastes vary substantially across the Yellow River divide. So the pursue of an unified marketing strategy is simply unrealistic.

Hong Kong and Macau have leagues separated from the mainland Chinese football pyramid but there are a few teams in the mainland areas surrounding them that play in their league systems.

Because of the low level of interest exhibited in the domestic football league, Chinese football fans, numbered in the hundreds of millions, often turn to major European football competitions, associating themselves most prominently with teams in the English Premier League, the Italian Serie A and the German Bundesliga, the three leagues who have established large fan bases in China. Chinese players going to play in European leagues attracts massive media attention, and as a result also gains a large following. Prominent examples include Sun Jihai, who plays for Manchester City F.C., Zheng Zhi, who plays for Charlton Athletic, Shao Jiayi, formerly of 1860 Munich, now of Energie Cottbus; and Yang Chen, formerly of Eintracht Frankfurt.

Main article: China national football team

Arguably the most supported sports team in the world (in terms of total fanbase within its own country), the Chinese national football team has had limited success both at the continental level and the international level. The amount of attention the national team receives in the media has often raised expectations beyond what is realistic, often resulting in the disappointment of fans. China's national team, whose first World Cup qualification run began in 1982, has failed to make it to the World Cup Finals every subsequent year except for in 2002, where the team failed to score a single goal. As part of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), the national team has failed to win once against rivals South Korea in over 25 years of competition history. China also struggles against regional opponents Japan and Saudi Arabia.

Football is the most covered sport in the Chinese media, although in recent years basketball has also risen to prominence. National competitions are generally televised on CCTV-5 - the Sports Channel. Guangdong Television reserves rights, however, for the English Premier League and the UEFA Champions League. Since 1996, CCTV-5 has weekly programs televising live games in the Italian Serie A and German Bundesliga, in addition to Soccer Night (足球之夜), a weekday program dedicated to everything football. Shanghai's Dongfang Sports channel also has regular football coverage.

In addition, peer-to-peer sharing programs such as PPLive and PPStream stream football coverage in almost all of the world's major competitions and all major European Leagues, and as a result have become a cheap source of football programming worldwide, even for non-Chinese speaking people.

See template below.

• Football (soccer) around the world
• Asian Football Confederation (AFC)

• Football in China Sinosoc
• China PR FIFA profile
• Chinese Football Association Official website
• China PR AFC profile

Football in China v • d • e
Click     next to the name of the competition for information on current season of that event. League competitions Chinese Football Association Cup competitions Super League     National Team     Chinese FA Cup Jia League (U-23 (Olympic Team)) Guangdong-Hong Kong Cup Yi League (Women's Team) Chinese footballers in European clubs List of football clubs List of venues