Guest Editors:
Emma Lupano, David Cockayne, Simon Chadwick & Jon Sullivan
Co-Directors, China Soccer Observatory, University of Nottingham, UK
In 2014, China’s President Xi revealed his vision for China to have created a domestic sport economy worth $800+million by 2025. As a focal point for this, staging and winning football’s World Cup have been identified as underpinnings to the realisation of Xi’s vision. In the period that has followed, both China’s public and private sectors have engaged in programmes of football investment, ranging from the creation of thousands of school pitches, through to the acquisition of some of the world’s leading football clubs and the signing of sponsorship deals with some of the world’s leading sports properties. At the same time, Chinese central government has intervened in its domestic football to moderate capital flows and maintain a focus on Xi’s vision.
Within a short space of time, football in China and China’s influence over football elsewhere in the world has therefore grown dramatically. This has resulted in a range of issues pertaining to vision, policy, strategy and management emerging, which researchers are invited to address as part of this call for papers.
However, China’s football history extends beyond Xi’s 2014 proclamation. In the decade or so prior to this, China successfully qualified for the men’s 2002 World Cup, although the team then performed poorly. In the meantime, the Chinese women’s national team has proved to be a more competent performer, typically being ranked among world football’s top-20 teams. Similarly, football investments are not just a recent development, as the signing in 2012 by Shanghai Shenhua of Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka, and the acquisition of the Guangzhou club (which was established in 1954) by the Evergrande Real Estate Corporation, have demonstrated.
With China’s dramatic growth over the last two decades, the country has also attracted the attention of football clubs, events and associations from across the world. As China has opened-up to the world, its rising disposable incomes, developing middle-class, dynamic social media and digital environments, and appetite for football have contributed to a market growth that has resulted in the country becoming an important target market for organisations seeking to build overseas revenues.
In the light of China’s focus on football, this special edition of the Journal of Global Sport Management calls for papers that examine aspects of vision, policy, strategy and management. Within these broad areas, papers examining China’s football in the following areas are encouraged:
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- Commercial developments;
- Soft power and diplomacy;
- Politics and political economy;
- Media and digital;
- Society and culture;
- Health and active lifestyles;
- Regulatory interventions.
Submissions addressing other issues pertinent to Chinese football will also be welcome, as will cross-disciplinary work.
Submission guidelines
In the first instance, authors are asked to submit a 150-word abstract in which they pitch their idea for a full paper submission. This should be submitted via e-mail to David Cockayne. Deadline: 30th September 2018.
Full paper submissions should be a maximum of 6 000 words, and be made electronically via the journal’s online submission system. Deadline: 30th March 2019.
It is anticipated that the journal special edition will be published during 2019.
Authors should indicate during the electronic submission steps that the submission is to be considered for the Special Issue on ‘Football in China – vision, policy, strategy and management’
Papers may be empirical or theoretical/conceptual, provide critical insight, or take the form of a case study.
Any questions or to submit abstracts for feedback – please contact the Guest Editors of the journal.
Special Issue Guest Editors
- Emma Lupano, emma.lupano@unimi.it;
- David Cockayne, David.Cockayne@liverpool.ac.uk;
- Simon Chadwick, S.M.Chadwick@salford.ac.uk;
- Jon Sullivan, Jonathan.Sullivan@nottingham.ac.uk
