To let go or to control? Depoliticisation and (re)politicisation in Chinese football

The concept of depoliticisation has become increasingly popular in Western governance studies. However, empirical analysis of depoliticisation processes in non-democratic political regimes is less prevalent. This article addresses this gap through an examination of China’s recent efforts to depoliticise the sport sector, using football as a trial. Documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews were adopted for data collection. Specifically, we delineated the principles adopted, activities occurred, and tools used for football depoliticisation at three political levels (macro, meso and micro), highlighting the inconsistencies between the desired outcomes and strategies for depoliticisation. We reveal that the depoliticisation of Chinese football is a convoluted and incremental process and various depoliticisation strategies were used in an attempt to reform the football governance system. A nexus between depoliticisation and (re)politicisation constantly emerged due to factors such as historic path dependency and the lack of determination of the government to fully relinquish control.