Shanghai SIPG Football Club (formerly Shanghai East Asia Football Club) was founded in 2005, jointly funded by Shanghai East Asia (Group) Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Genbao Football Training Base. Xu Genbao, a local coach in Shanghai, is the company’s president and the club’s chairman. Since its establishment, the team has won multiple competitions and proved to the world its own strength and that of Shanghai and China.
The history of the team is marked by its extraordinary pursuit of excellence. Since it began playing in a professional league in 2006, under the guidance of Coach Xu Genbao, the team has entered China League Two, then the China League, and the Chinese Football Association Super League (CSL) in 2012. In 2014, SIPG acquired the team as a whole, greatly boosting the development of the team and the progress of sports in Shanghai. The new SIPG team has forged ahead and consistently finished among the top three teams in the CSL. The SIPG team took second place in the 2015 and 2017 seasons, and third place in 2016. In 2018, thanks to the joint efforts of all the coaches, athletes and staff, the team won the championship. That is not only the first CSL championship won by the club, but also the highest honor that a team has won for Shanghai in China’s top professional football league in 23 years.
SIPG has also achieved remarkable results in international competitions. In Asia, when participating in the AFC Champions League for the first time in 2016, it entered the quarterfinals as Number1 in the group stage. In 2017, the team fought to the semifinals, which is the best result achieved by a Shanghai football team in the AFC Champions League. The good results are inseparable from the outstanding talent of the SIPG team. In recent years, many SIPG players have been regulars on the Chinese national team. Players like Wu Lei, Yan Junling, Yu Hai, Shi Ke, Wang Shenchao and Cai Huikang have all had outstanding performances. Wu Lei, the Number 7 player on the SIPG team, has won the top Chinese scorer award in the CSL for five consecutive years since the 2013 season. In the 2018 season, he even surpassed the foreign players, scoring 27 goals in the CSL, winning the CSL top scorer award and the title of "Player of the Year".
Shanghai SIPG Football Club will continue to forge ahead in pursuit of excellence and realize new achievements for sports in Shanghai and China with its hard work and indomitable spirit on the field.