Foreign Leagues
See also: East Asian Football Federation#European-based playersBecause of the low level of interest exhibited in the domestic football league, Chinese football fans, numbered in the hundreds of millions, often turn to major European football competitions, associating themselves most prominently with teams in the English Premier League, the Italian Serie A and the German Bundesliga, the three leagues who have established large fan bases in China. Chinese players going to play in European leagues attracts massive media attention, and as a result also gains a large following. Prominent examples include Sun Jihai, formerly of Manchester City; Zheng Zhi, who played for Celtic; Shao Jiayi, formerly of 1860 Munich, now of MSV Duisburg; and Yang Chen, formerly of Eintracht Frankfurt.
Read more about this topic: Football In The People's Republic Of China, Media Coverage of Football in China
Famous quotes containing the words foreign and/or leagues:
“Most of our occupations are low comedy.... We must play our part duly, but as the part of a borrowed character. Of the mask and appearance we must not make a real essence, nor of what is foreign what is our very own.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summon’d am to a tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end:
Methinks it is no journey.”
—Unknown. Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song (l. 57–60)