the seeds of a new football age in China are beginning to sprout
China's national team will not appear at the 2026 World Cup, yet the country finds itself in the midst of a quiet soccer awakening — not engineered from above, but rising from the ground up. Where decades of government mandates and billionaire spending failed to root the sport in the culture, ordinary citizens in provinces like Jiangsu are filling stadiums of 60,000 and flooding ticket platforms with millions of applications just to watch their neighbors play. It is a reminder that genuine love for a game cannot be manufactured, only discovered — and that sometimes failure at the summit clears space for something more durable to grow.
- China's national team missed World Cup qualification again, deepening a long pattern of elite-level disappointment that has left the country on the outside of the sport's grandest stage.
- The era of imported superstars and lavish club spending has collapsed entirely, leaving behind financial wreckage and a professional landscape stripped of its former glamour.
- Yet the Chinese Super League quietly posted the highest average attendance in Asia this season — 26,000 fans per game — suggesting the appetite for soccer never actually left.
- The Jiangsu Football City League, a community amateur competition, drew 62,000 fans to its final and received over 2 million online ticket applications, stunning even its own organizers.
- Provinces across China are now launching their own grassroots leagues, signaling a structural shift from top-down sport development toward something organic, local, and self-sustaining.
- Where state ambition and investor capital both fell short, ordinary people with a genuine attachment to the game may be laying the foundation for a more enduring football culture.
China will not be at the 2026 World Cup. The national team failed to qualify, extending a long pattern of elite disappointment. Yet beneath that failure, something unexpected is taking shape — a grassroots revival that owes nothing to government directives or billionaire spending.
The 2025 domestic season offers early evidence. Shanghai Port and Shanghai Shenhua are contesting the Chinese Super League title, with a final match in Dalian expected to draw over 60,000 fans. Across the season, the league averaged 26,000 spectators per game — the highest figure among Asia's top professional divisions, and a striking contrast to the era when clubs were spending fortunes on names like Carlos Tevez and Oscar. That age of imported glamour is over. What remains is something quieter and, perhaps, more real.
The more remarkable story is unfolding in the amateur game. Jiangsu Province lost its Super League club in 2021 when Jiangsu FC folded under financial strain. This May, the province responded by launching the Jiangsu Football City League — 13 teams of local residents and students competing across the region. Average attendance hovered near 30,000. The final, held in Nanjing on November 1st, drew 62,000 people and generated more than 2 million online ticket applications. When Taizhou claimed the title, the city celebrated as though it had won something far larger.
Taizhou's coach, Zhou Gaoping — the only female manager in the league — reflected on what the moment represented. Through this competition, she wrote, soccer could rediscover its true meaning, something that transcends winning and losing.
The Jiangsu model is already spreading. Multiple provinces are now building their own community leagues, marking a fundamental departure from how Chinese football has historically been developed. Simon Chadwick, a sport professor at Emlyon Business School, describes the shift as organic and community-driven — shaped by people with a genuine attachment to the game rather than by institutional ambition. Taizhou is already recruiting for 2026 and has been overwhelmed with applications. China's men's team will watch the World Cup from home. But across the country, more soccer may be being played and watched than at any point in its history.
China will not be at the 2026 World Cup. The national team failed to qualify, continuing a pattern of disappointment that has shadowed the sport in the country for years. Yet something unexpected is happening beneath that failure—a genuine revival of soccer at the ground level, one that owes nothing to government mandates or the spending power of billionaires.
The 2025 domestic season offers the first real evidence. Shanghai Port and Shanghai Shenhua are battling for the Chinese Super League title, with Port holding a two-point lead heading into the final match in Dalian on Saturday. The match itself matters less than what surrounds it: more than 60,000 fans are expected to fill the stadium. Across the entire season, the league averaged 26,000 spectators per game—the highest attendance figure among Asia's top professional divisions, and notably higher than a decade ago when Chinese clubs were throwing vast sums at global superstars like Carlos Tevez, Hulk, and Oscar, luring world-class coaches like Marcello Lippi and Sven-Göran Eriksson to manage them.
That era of imported glamour is over. There are no international marquee names in China's top flight anymore, and no Chinese clubs capable of competing seriously in continental tournaments. For years, the headlines from Chinese soccer told a story of collapse—teams folding under financial strain, investors fleeing, the whole apparatus of elite sport grinding to a halt. Yet the appetite for the game itself never truly vanished.
Simon Chadwick, a professor of AfroEurasian Sport at Emlyon Business School in France, sees the current moment as genuinely significant. "There's no doubt that a hardcore of football fans still exists in China, and the passion of some people remains undiminished by the last decade's tribulations," he told the Associated Press. More provocatively, he suggested that "the seeds of a new football age in China are beginning to sprout."
The real story, though, is not in the professional league. It is in the amateur competitions now spreading across the country. Jiangsu Province, home to roughly 80 million people, lost its Super League club in 2021 when Jiangsu FC shut down. In May of this year, the province launched the Jiangsu Football City League—a competition featuring 13 teams drawn from across the region, made up of local residents and students. The average attendance was close to 30,000. On November 1st, the final took place in Nanjing, the provincial capital. Sixty-two thousand people showed up. Online, there were more than 2 million ticket applications. When Taizhou's team won the title, the city erupted in celebration.
Zhou Gaoping, Taizhou's coach and the only female manager in the league, captured something of what the moment means. "Through this league, we can rediscover the true meaning and essence of soccer, which transcends victory and defeat," she wrote on social media. "We hope that we can break through the fog and usher in a new dawn for Chinese soccer."
The success in Jiangsu has triggered a cascade. Other provinces are now launching their own community-focused leagues. This represents a fundamental shift in how soccer is being grown in China. For decades, the sport was shaped from above—by government directives, by the ambitions of wealthy investors, by the logic of national prestige. Now it is being built from below, by people who simply want to play and watch. Chadwick notes the contrast: "Rather than being imposed by government or fast-tracked by financial investors, the growth of football in China this time seems more organic, community-focused, and driven by people who have a genuine attachment to the game."
Taizhou is already recruiting players for the 2026 season and has been flooded with applications. China's men's national team will be watching the World Cup from home next year. But across one of the world's most densely populated nations, there may be more soccer being played and watched than ever before.
Notable Quotes
The growth of football in China this time seems more organic, community-focused, and driven by people who have a genuine attachment to the game.— Simon Chadwick, professor of AfroEurasian Sport at Emlyon Business School
Through this league, we can rediscover the true meaning and essence of soccer, which transcends victory and defeat. We hope that we can break through the fog and usher in a new dawn for Chinese soccer.— Zhou Gaoping, Taizhou coach
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does it matter that China isn't at the World Cup if attendance is actually up?
Because for decades, Chinese soccer's entire identity was tied to national prestige and elite competition. The absence from the World Cup would have been catastrophic ten years ago. Now it barely registers against what's happening in the provinces.
What changed?
The money dried up. The foreign superstars left. The government stopped trying to engineer success from the top. And suddenly people just started playing soccer because they wanted to, not because it was supposed to make China look powerful.
Is this sustainable? Can grassroots enthusiasm actually last?
That's the question Chadwick himself raises. But the numbers suggest something real—2 million online ticket applications for an amateur final. That's not manufactured. That's genuine hunger.
Why Jiangsu specifically?
It lost its professional team in 2021. So the province had this void, this soccer culture with nowhere to go. The amateur league filled it. Now other provinces are copying the model.
And the women's coach—what does her presence signal?
That this isn't the old boys' club version of Chinese soccer. It's more open, more inclusive. She's the only female manager in the league, which says something about how new this all is.
What happens if this actually works?
You get a generation of Chinese soccer fans and players who grew up loving the game for itself, not for national glory. That's a completely different foundation than what came before.