Premier League clubs will never walk alone with Asian football fans

Crowds out in force to catch a glimpse of their beloved team, be it Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal or Chelsea.

A boy tries to touch the Premier League's champion trophy during Manchester United soccer schools in Yokohama, near Tokyo.

It started as a crush in the 1980s and became a steady relationship, but wild scenes over the past week have shown that east Asia's love for English football is growing stronger.

While Asian ardour for the English Premier League has long been known, the unbridled affection seen during this year's pre-season tours has stunned even seasoned observers.

Rock-star welcomes from Vietnam to Australia. Screaming fans at every hotel and photo-shoot. Sold-out arenas across the region and thousands paying just to watch their heroes train.

In Jakarta, Liverpool fans are so well-versed that when You'll Never Walk Alone rang out around the cavernous Gelora Bung Karno Stadium, it was in a pitch-perfect Scouse accent.

"Liverpool fans here know all the club's songs and chants, and they've even learnt the accent just from YouTube," said Fajar Nugraha, who helps run Indonesia's "Bigreds" fan club.

More than 95,000 fans turned out to watch Liverpool's friendly in Melbourne, the second biggest for a football match seen in Australia.

In Bangkok, motorbike taxi riders showed loyalty to Manchester United by charging 200 baht (Dh24) for passengers headed to watch the champions but 300 baht for the same journey when Chelsea were playing.

One enterprising fan ran five miles through the streets of Hanoi alongside the Arsenal team bus, wearing the team's shirt, before finally being invited on board.

And in Kuala Lumpur, Chelsea devotees surrounded a rogue Manchester United supporter and forced him to remove his shirt after he turned up at a public training session wearing red instead of blue.

David Moyes, newly appointed as Manchester United's manager, was amazed at the welcome when he stepped off their chartered jet in Bangkok, comparing it to Beatlemania.

"We arrived at the airport and I heard lots of screaming young ladies. I don't think it was at me," he said. "It was like some famous pop group arriving, it was an incredible welcome."

Julian Jackson, a veteran Asia hand for the sports marketing agency Total Sports Asia (TSA), said the popularity of the Premier League, often known regionally as the EPL, was growing "without a doubt".

"The popularity has been soaring for the last few years," he said. "They're only scratching the surface in terms of getting money out of Asia."

Jackson points to the rising value of TV rights deals for the Premier League in Asia, an area with vast growth potential given the region's enormous and upwardly mobile population.

On their trips to Asia, clubs charge appearance fees to play friendly games, and benefit from sales of official merchandise.

They trade on their popularity by signing sponsorship deals involving everything from banks and credit cards to beer, telecoms, airlines, and even tomato juice.

"Our global fan base is just short of a billion, and half of those are here in Asia, so it is a hugely important part of what we do," the Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore said.

Jackson said Liverpool sharpened their focus on Asia when they hired Ian Ayre, formerly with the Kuala Lumpur-based TSA, as their managing director, and agreed a main sponsorship deal with Standard Chartered, a bank with a strong Asian presence.

The Premier League now has a presence in the dynamic region that rivals, including NBA basketball and Major League Baseball, and even Spanish and German football, can only dream about.

But it has been decades in the making, after British TV companies struck deals to screen English football in Asian countries long before the advent of explosive economic growth.

"It's a history thing," said Jackson, an English expatriate. "The BBC and ITV were selling English football way before the Germans and Italians and Spanish got involved in the situation."

He added: "English football has a particular brand: 100 miles per hour, exciting to watch … and the English were always good at producing highlights shows, magazine shows, interview shows. It meant the fans were more educated."

With the Premier League followed across the continent, media coverage is vast. Asian TV channels and newspapers devote generous space to the competition, reducing the exposure of local sports.

As a result, Premier League footballers are adored like matinee idols, ensuring an ecstatic reception when fans get a rare chance to see them in person.

"They're like stars, like Hollywood stars coming here. Football fans feel like that," said Peerawit Anantasirarat, a sports reporter for Thailand's Modern9 TV.

"When John Terry came out, or when Rooney came out at the airport, we're seeing superstars come here. It's amazing."

In Vietnam, hosting a Premier League club for the first time, fans queued overnight not only for tickets to see Arsenal, but also to meet them at the airport.

Not all has gone smoothly this month, however. In Indonesia, a promoter was ordered to repay fans who were charged to meet players - a practice seen elsewhere in the region.

And in Thailand, eyebrows were raised when the prime minister's young son strode out as a mascot for Chelsea, after also appearing at a coaching clinic by the London club's stars.

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