The art of face-saving and culture-changing: sculpting Chinese football’s past, present and future

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the football statues of China, whose football team has dramatically underperformed relative to its population size and economic power. Although China lacks a participative grassroots football culture and has struggled to establish a credible domestic league, recent government intervention and investment has seen football’s profile rise dramatically. China’s many football statues are largely atypical in comparison to the rest of the world, including their depiction of anonymous figures rather than national or local heroes, the incorporation of tackling scenes in their designs, and their location at training camps. Through four specific examples and reference to a global database, we illustrate how these statues reflect the tensions and difficulties inherent in China’s desire to integrate itself into global football, and achieve its stated goal of hosting and winning the FIFA World Cup, whilst simultaneously upholding national, cultural and political values such as the primacy of hard work and learning, and saving face in defeat.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Rowan Simons, William Bi, Cameron Wilson, Christopher Lamb, Nick Catley and Mike O’Mahony for some invaluable discussions and correspondence around Chinese art, football and culture, and/or taking time to read and comment on drafts of this manuscript. We also hugely appreciate the time and effort spent by Mike Farrelly, Ana Chamorro, and all credited photographers in acquiring the images featured – and by Ffion Thomas in helping the first author compile and map China’s football statues.

Notes

1. For the purposes of this paper, statues are defined as three-dimensional full-body figurative monuments, with the figures being both at least half-life-size and permanent installations (as opposed to waxworks and museum models). Statue groups feature multiple such figures arranged in close proximity, almost always constructed and unveiled together, presented as a single exhibit, e.g. with a single plaque or inscription, and with the figures typically but not always interacting.

2. Between January 2013 and March 2014, the first author and a colleague constructed a database of existing statues of football players, managers, and chairmen as part of a wider project into commemoration in sport, which they have continued to maintain and update. Data and images were obtained through a literature, archival and online search, and via interviews with sculptors and project organizers. Variables collected included the precise location, date of unveiling, design type (broadly classified as ‘action’, ‘posed’ or ‘triumph’), the full plaque or plinth inscription, and the identity of the statue project promoters and funders, as well as further demographic and performance information on the subjects depicted. Since April 2014 the primary elements of the database (the statue location, sculptor, unveiling date, inscription and photos of the statue showing the design) have been publically available through the project website at http://www.sportingstatues.com (Stride, Thomas, and Wilson 2012).

3. For some examples, see the project website http://www.sportingstatues.com, which gives details of many less popular UK sports that have had statues erected in their participants’ honour, including lawn bowls, water polo and wheelchair basketball.

4. For a full listing see the sporting statues world football database (Stride, Thomas, and Wilson 2012).

5. The South Korea-Japan jointly-hosted 2002 FIFA World Cup, which saw the hosts progress to the semi-finals and the last 16 respectively. Both nations have qualified for all subsequent World Cups, and both progressed beyond the group stages again in 2010. Japan have won the Asian Cup tournament four times since 1992; South Korea have failed to reach the semi-finals only once in the last 5 tournaments.

6. In December 2016, Chinese clubs Shanghai SIPG and Shanghai Shenhua were reported to be paying the two highest salaries in world football (‘The highest paid footballers’ 2016). In January 2017 Shanghai SIPG signed Oscar from Chelsea FC for 60 million pounds, the latest in a series of multi-million pound investments (Bloomfield 2017; Price 2017).

7. Between 2015 and 2017, West Bromwich Albion, Birmingham City, Aston Villa and Wolverhampton Wanderers, four Midlands-based football clubs in the English Premier League and Championship (the top two tiers of English professional football) were purchased by Chinese owners or consortia. In addition, Chinese investors have purchased stakes in European heavyweights such as Manchester City FC, and both Milan clubs (AC and Internazionale).

8. Examples of Chinese football statues that are just one element in an arrangement of different sports sculptures can be found in Olympic Avenue Park, Hebei (see the sporting statues database, http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_Anonymous_20.htm); and Xinghai Square, Dalian (http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_Anonymous_204.htm).

9. Examples of Chinese-sited statues of anonymous footballers tackling, with a variety of different designs include those in Hebei (see the sporting statues database, http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_Anonymous_23.htm); Tianjin (http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_Anonymous_13.htm); Tongzou Olympic Park in Beijing (http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_Anonymous_26.htm); and Dalian North Station Square (http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_Anonymous_23.htm).

10. Examples of Russian-sited statues of anonymous footballers tackling can be found in Krasnodar Krai (see the sporting statues database http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_Anonymous_189.htm); Zarechny (http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_Anonymous_169.htm); the Tretykov Gallery, Moscow (http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_Anonymous_91.htm and O’Mahony 2017); and most notably the St Petersburg Blockade Match Monument (http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_Anonymous_94.htm).

11. The Chinese National Football Museum features statues of members of the Chinese Women’s national team, but given their location and material these would be more correctly described as museum models that are semi-permanent exhibits, as opposed to permanent public statues.

12. Further full team statues celebrate the 1964 BSG Chemie Leipzig team (at BSG Chemie Leipzig in Leipzig, Germany: see the sporting statues database. http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_BSGLeipzig_1.htm); the 2002 Turkey World Cup team (in Istanbul: see the sporting statues database http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_TurkeyWC2002.htm), the 2002 South Korea World Cup team (at Gyeonggi: see the sporting statues database http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_SouthKorea_WC2002.htm), and the Ararat Yerevan team (at Hrazdan Stadium, Yerevan: see the sporting statues database http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_AraratYerevan.htm).

13. See http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_Cruyff_Johan_1.htm; http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_VanBasten_Marco.htm; http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_VanDerSar_Edwin.htm.

14. To view the original Moore statue at Wembley Stadium, UK, see the sporting statues database; http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_Moore_Bobby_1.htm. To view the Pelé statue in Três Corações, Brazil, see sporting statues database; http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_Pele_2.htm. A second cast of the Pelé statue was unveiled in 1971 in Salvador, Brazil; http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STFB_Pele_1.htm.

15. Notable examples of this stylistic subgenre of sports statues include that of basketball legend Michael Jordan, sited in Chicago, and most notably those of three Washington baseball heroes, Walter Johnson, Josh Gibson and Frank Howard, at Nationals Park, Washington DC (see, for example, the sporting statues database http://www.offbeat.group.shef.ac.uk/statues/STUS_Howard_Frank.htm).