Little research has examined how football rivalries shape civic identity in Asian megacities characterised by rapid urbanisation and high internal mobility. Drawing on 30 semi-structured interviews and online non-participant observation, this study examines how the football fans of Shanghai Shenhua F.C. and Shanghai Port F.C. shape and reflect civic identity in Shanghai through their derby rivalry. The findings reveal that Shenhua fans assert local authenticity via the 310 ID prefix and Shanghainese dialect, reinforcing boundaries between natives and migrants. In contrast, Port supporters, mostly new elite socioeconomically privileged migrants, embrace global symbols to construct a cosmopolitan counter-identity. A further group of neutral fans, ‘Purple Skins’, express city-first attachment to Shanghai that sits uneasily with club-centred tribalism. These competing repertoires co-produce a distinctive Shanghai-style derby culture, while state-led stadium relocations further reshape the spatial visibility of fandom and the contours of authenticity claims. The article develops an analytical framework linking structural conditions, fan practices and differentiated civic identities in urban derby contexts, offering a transferable approach for future studies of football fan rivalries across diverse international contexts.
Qi et al. (Fri,) studied this question.