Chinese transnational football fans and English Premier League: A sociological research of Chinese Manchester United fans

In recent years, the interrelationship between globalization and football has been widely researched. The trend of ‘televised football’ has made the sport watched and celebrated globally. While it has seen a significant growth of Chinese fans following EPL football clubs in past decades, there is little academic attention paid to understand this Chinese transnational football fandom. This research is set to provide rich empirical evidence to understand a) what motivate or how Chinese fans started to follow English Premier League football clubs from a far distance; b) how do Chinese fan engage with EPL football clubs; c) from a glocalization perspective, how Chinese fans ‘glocalize’ English football fan culture with respect to their own socio-cultural context.

To answer these questions, this research follows a qualitative design, applied focus groups, semi-structured interview, and netnographic approach to gain rich interpretations from Chinese fans, to observe their innovative ways of engagement both online and offline, and to thematise the unique characteristics of their transnational football fandom and its interplay with global consumer culture within Chinese socio-cultural context.

The key findings suggest that, firstly, the origin of Chinese transnational football fandom is a direct consequence of the commodification and commercialisation of English football to become a globally televised product. Their transnational affection found a media-dependent and cosmopolitan origin. Secondly, Chinese fans regular engage with English football clubs in an innovative, self-maintained ways. Their far-distanced engagement and interactions in virtual and online spaces become significant. Thirdly, in terms of their glocalized practices, Chinese sociological concept of circle culture is found useful to understand their fan group formation and social relations. Additionally, this research suggest that an increasing trend of an impetuous consumer culture is evident from the inception of this transnational football fandom.