Ninth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

Football is one of the most watched sport in the world with estimated 3.5 billion fans, with 4 Asian countries occupying the top 10 in the most watching countries. Vietnam, Thailand, India and China being the major football viewing countries in Asia. Football is said to be the most globalized sport and it’s rise in Asia during the 2000’s has shown a major platform for commercialization of the sport so as to develop as a footballing nation producing both individual talent and to be known for its own culture of football. The study would be based on the comparison of various various football leagues throughout Asia and will be compared upon factors such as commercialization, privatization, advertisement and sponsorship, cultural exchange, academic education, youth academy, stadium facilities and infrastructure. This study will help show if commercialization, privatization and commoditization helps the countries to improve their football and also provide us with justification of which model is likely to achieve success. Asian football was majorly overlooked during the 1990’s but in the recent years it has been on the rise with capturing attention of major European leagues and players with the amount of money involved.This year India hosted the Fifa U-17 world cup and it proved to be a huge success in terms of highest attended and most goals scored in a tournament ever. The overall tally of attendance across all matches was recorded to be 1,290,027. The Chinese super league and the Indian Super league are considered to be the top leagues of the country and a stepping stone towards achieving success in football. China has been able to bring top European players to play in the country through money and India has managed to bring retired football greats. Other Asian countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and South Korea are steps ahead with South Korea and Japan both qualifying for the 2018 world cup.