Soccer fever grips folk

The annual soccer league of South China Normal University kicks off(开始） next week.

Hu Xiaoqing, art school captain, went to the campus shop to pick up the team’ outfit（装备）. But Guangzhou Evergrande FC（广州恒大） jerseys were sold our.

Guangzhou’s league championship last year reignited（再点燃） the city’s passion for soccer. This was despite match fixing （非法操纵）and gambling scandals which tarnished（使失去光泽） Chinese soccer. The fever also broke out on campuses with more students becoming fans and players.

“You can see more and more students wearing the Evergrande or R&F（广州富力） jersey （运动衫）on campus,” said Hu, 21, a junior majoring in environment art.

According to Hu, the school team recruiting new members every year. This year there were three times as many applicants.

Soccer pitches are crowded with more than 50 soccer player and students have to take turns.

“There were only about 10 students playing soccer two years ago,” said Hu.

According to Guangzhou Evergrande soccer club, 15,000 season tickets were sold on the day whey went on sale, most of them bought by students who queued overnight.

Taobao online store owner Chan Ye is feeling the heat too. In the last 30 days, the store has sold 433 Evergrande jerseys, four times as many as AC Milan jerseys.

“We sold mo more than 600 Evergrande jerseys the whole of last year,” said Chen. ”It has been a long time since a domestic soccer jersey was the most popular item, it reminds me of the golden days of Chinese soccer 10 years ago.”

According to figures from the Chinese Football Association, more than 45,600 people on average swarmed into Guangzhou  stadium （体育场）to watch Evergrande playing at home in 2011. The number topped all Chinese super league clubs.

Students once crowded the canteen（食堂） to watch English or Italian league soccer on TV.

“But now half of the TVs are turned in to watch Evergrande games live,” said Liao Yongjie, sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering at Shantou University

“People used to say that Chinese football had no future and more students went to play basketball or other sports, but now you see more students interested in soccer.”

Zhang Yu, of the sports department at Hunan University of Commerce thinks that soccer fever means more than sales of tickets and jerseys.

“Chinese soccer needs to take root （生根）with the population as a whole and on campus is the ideal place for cultivation,” said Zhang to Hunan Daily last week.

“Young people’s passion for soccer  is the most important thing.”