Being a Chinese city fan and grew up in a family which literally every male member is in certain degree football crazy. I find it really amusing to hear you say Chinese is a nation lacking of football enthusiasm.
Football was and has been still the No1 sport in China with huge followings. PL is the most watched league here. If you have been in china before 2000, you will probably be amazed by the amount of people watching football. So what happened? After Chinese National Team failed to qualify for the word-cup again in 2010, huge scandal of matching fixings broke out which included majority of the referees, heads of FA, famous football players and managers. I remember Sun said in one of the interview that one of the reasons why he choose to go to City, was to get away from all of the "bad influence" in Chinese football. As a result of this, people started to turn their heads toward other sports.
Another reason is the demographic change, as more of the post-80s and 90s growing up, majority of these two generations are child of the "one child policy" enforced by the government. Many of the one child's parents forbid their children to get into sports they believe can be dangerous. Therefore, less people playing the sport and less professional and decent player came out of the system.
The football culture in generally is in decline in the past decades, so what you are seeing now probably is not a market that is in its infancy, but more of a jumped shark type of thing.
Still I will be over the moon, if City decides to buy a local team here.
BTW, any city fan wished to travel to Shenzhen China, feels free to drop me a line.
Football was and has been still the No1 sport in China with huge followings. PL is the most watched league here. If you have been in china before 2000, you will probably be amazed by the amount of people watching football. So what happened? After Chinese National Team failed to qualify for the word-cup again in 2010, huge scandal of matching fixings broke out which included majority of the referees, heads of FA, famous football players and managers. I remember Sun said in one of the interview that one of the reasons why he choose to go to City, was to get away from all of the "bad influence" in Chinese football. As a result of this, people started to turn their heads toward other sports.
Another reason is the demographic change, as more of the post-80s and 90s growing up, majority of these two generations are child of the "one child policy" enforced by the government. Many of the one child's parents forbid their children to get into sports they believe can be dangerous. Therefore, less people playing the sport and less professional and decent player came out of the system.
The football culture in generally is in decline in the past decades, so what you are seeing now probably is not a market that is in its infancy, but more of a jumped shark type of thing.
Still I will be over the moon, if City decides to buy a local team here.
BTW, any city fan wished to travel to Shenzhen China, feels free to drop me a line.
