DAVID BECKHAM is one of the most popular foreigners in China, but that will not save him from expletives when he plays his first match for his new club in Beijing today Chinese fans have already shouted a string of insults this week in Real Madrid’s practice sessions in the southern city of Kunming. There is nothing personal — it is just that sport provides a rare opportunity to let off steam in a highly authoritarian society.
With the implicit blessing of the Communist Party, sport has become a safety valve for pent-up public pressures. Football arenas are among the few venues where Chinese can release aggression without interference from the authorities. On the terraces, no slogan is too obscene. “Referees have to be protected by police from angry crowds, who know better than to direct their anger at government officials,” Li Lan, a regular observer of sports matches in Beijing, said. Bei Ke Han Mu, as he is known in Mandarin, is making his debut with Real Madrid against a selection of China’s best players at the Workers’ Stadium in Beijing. The game is certain to expand the former Manchester United star’s global brand appeal. He is already the best-known sportsman in China and has featured in high-profile advertising campaigns. However, the Real tour will serve another purpose for the Chinese authorities: convincing the world that the Sars epidemic is over.
Aston Villa and Everton, like most foreign tourists, cancelled their tours of China this summer. The two English clubs had planned to tap one of the world’s biggest growth markets for sports goods. Jiang Kun, a tour organiser, said: “The purpose of Real Madrid’s visit to China is to mark our successful defeat of Sars.”
Football is now a hugely popular pastime in China and many European league games are shown on television. The market is dominated by Manchester United.
All week the local media have trailed Beckham’s activities, which easily outshone Tony Blair’s recent visit to China. Political coverage might be heavily censored but the sports pages are among the liveliest in the world. In less than a decade, they have built up an audience of several hundred million by using modern printing methods and investing millions in correspondent networks. Qu Youyuan started Titan, his sports paper, 15 years ago, selling it from the back of his bicycle. Now it is the country’s biggest, with a daily circulation of more than a million.