Globalization and Football Fandom

This book uses the case of football fandom in Hong Kong to shine new light on the globalization of sport and culture, and on the intersection of culture and society in a postcolonial territory. Based on in-depth interviews, textual analysis, and survey data, the book explores the lived experience of football fans in Hong Kong.

Using the theoretical framework of ‘banal cosmopolitanism,’ the book explains how elite men’s football from Europe, particularly the English Premier League, became extremely popular in the city when live TV broadcasts became more frequent in the 1990s. It argues that although football fandom in Hong Kong has been hugely transformed by globalization, how it has changed has to be understood in local context. The book also reveals how Hong Kong’s colonial legacy is manifested in the English Premier League’s popularity in the city and in the rapid decline of professional men’s football in Hong Kong, which tells an important story about the relationship between sport, culture, and globalization in the early 21st century.

This is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the sociology or culture of sport, football, globalization, or the history, culture or politics of Asia.