Shanghai Shenhua is a Chinese Super League football club. They play at the 35,000 seat Hongkou Stadium in Shanghai, China.Their biggest supporters club is called Blue Devil.

Fans for the memory

Blue devil at the beginning organizes with a few of friend who see the ball together. Now Blue devil also has more than one thousand member, and be the famous football team supporters club. We support Shanghai Shenhua. Yes, we are the best! -- MoPa

AFTER two top football clubs in Shanghai were kicked out of the A3 League, the team's fan club is now on the edge of being kicked out too.

Shenhua Lanmo Fans Club, the city's biggest fan club, has been mired in agony since it was ordered to stop operations on March 12. The nationally-known fan club is on the verge of being swept away.

According to the Shanghai Football Association (SFA), it was the rude and violent behaviour of the fans during the Shanghai derby on February 22 that lead to the punishment.

The chaos peaked when a Lanmo fan threw a drum stick onto the pitch, striking Shanghai Zhongyuan's player Qi Hong in the face and putting the local football star into a coma.

SFA also pointed out that the bad record of Lanmo's pitch violence had been taken into account when they decided on the punishment, the most serious of its kind in Chinese history.

Founded in 2000, Lanmo, which literally means "blue devil" in reference to the Shenhua players' blue shirts, was regarded as a symbol of football supporters in Shanghai, even in China. The Lanmo club was divided into two when another Shanghai Zhongyuan Club joined the Jia A league.

Shenhua Lanmo supported Shenhua while Zhongyuan Lanmo stood by Zhongyuan.

Lanmo has won fame for passion and good organization, with more than 2,000 members.

"I could not believe my eyes when the drum stick flew down, or believe that Lanmo would be on the edge of being eliminated," said Xu Feng, president of the Lanmo Fans Club.

Xu thought it was not so much the drum stick issue as the illegal identity of Shenhua Lanmo that had brought them the disastrous punishment.

"Shenhua Lanmo has remained an illegal organization for the past four years, without recognition from the government," said Xu.

Xu said that he began to apply for permission from the second month after its establishment. But the application had failed to be granted over the past four years.

An official from the Shanghai Football Association explained that the application by Shenhua Lanmo was obstructed by regulations on the establishment of non-governmental organizations.

According to the Regulations on Registration Administration for Associations, the law guiding non-governmental organizations, there should be only one non-governmental organization in Shanghai engaged in the same or similar kind of activity.

Unfortunately, the Shanghai Football Fans Association, an organization of the same kind was established before Shenhua Lanmo, blocking Shenhua Lanmo from being registered.

But it was not so much this limitation as Lanmo's failure to find an organization as its guarantor, to serve as a referee for the organizations, taking responsibility if they fail to behave themselves.

"A famous Shanghai-based media giant approached us in late 2002 and agreed to be our guarantor. But the application still failed," said Xu.

The only choice left for Shenhua Lanmo was to find a powerful guarantor willing to accept the club as one of its subordinate departments.

A negotiation between SFA and the Shanghai Shenhua Club is underway to discuss the possibility of Shenhua serving as the guarantor for Shanghai Lanmo.

Zhongyuan Lanmo has achieved great success since separating from Shenhua Lanmo. Membership of Zhongyuan Lanmo has topped 2,300 and these fans do not have to worry about the elimination of their club because it has won legal support from the Zhongyuan Football Club.

In contrast to Shenhua Lanmo, Zhongyuan Lanmo has paid serious attention to the marketing and business promotion of the club.

Wang Qihao, President of Zhongyuan Lanmo, said: "We knew we had to depend on marketing and business promotion if we wanted a strong organization."

--By Li Jian, Shanghai Star. 2004-04-01