Airport mobs to online abuse: Who pays the price in China’s toxic sports fandom?

SINGAPORE: When Xiao Yan set up an Instagram page in 2022 dedicated to Chinese table tennis stars Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, all she wanted was to show her support for her compatriots while also introducing the two athletes to more people overseas.

“I felt our overseas friends wouldn’t get much of a chance to get to know Chinese athletes, especially when they’re not as famous,” said the 23-year-old university graduate.

But as the pair climbed the rankings, the mood around her posts soured. Xiao began noticing rude comments directed at the duo being left beneath her updates.

“(There would be) comments making fun of Sun and Wang’s table tennis results, calling them names … I was even called an idiot because I supported ‘idiots’,” said Xiao, adding that she would also find her posts reported for no reason.

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Xiao’s experience reflects a broader wave of toxic fandom that has become increasingly visible in sport as well as entertainment.

Regulators and athletes alike have moved to rein it in following a series of high-profile incidents - from jeers at the Paris Olympics to airport mobs, and even hotel-room trespass.

Measures include a fresh online clean-up against doxxing and abuse, the dissolution of official fan clubs across teams and top athletes, and a parallel push in state media condemning bad behaviour by fans.

But curbing misconduct is hard. Despite episodic clean-ups, fans and analysts say platform bans are easily dodged, while a click-driven fan economy keeps feuds alive.

WHEN FANS GO OVERBOARD

In China, toxic conduct often surfaces in organised fan communities known as “fan quan”, a phonetic play on “fen quan” or fan circles in Mandarin. This label has increasingly acquired a negative edge as zeal spills into harassment and abuse.

There have been notable examples.

In the case of Chinese table tennis, at Paris 2024, some of Sun’s fans jeered her teammate Chen Meng during their match, which Chen won, and she later faced online abuse. Crowds also swarmed paddler Fan Zhendong at airports and hotels in December last year.

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