The Absent Savior? Nationalism, Migration, and Football in Taiwan

Abstract

A surge of interest in football has surfaced in the past few years in Taiwan. Many fans credit it to Xavier Chen, a Belgium born French-Taiwanese footballer. Chen lives mostly in Belgium and has a distant connection with Taiwan. His Mandarin efficacy is very limited. Yet he is still being hailed as the savior of football. Despite being a member of the Belgium Under-19 national team, Chen’s tie with Taiwan was unearthed by a local football fan, who later became his agent, in the computer game franchise ‘Football Manager’. He was recruited and later naturalized as a Taiwanese citizen and debuted for the national team in 2011. Chen, nicknamed ‘The Noble Prince of Football’, has been a very unique sport celebrity in many regards. His educational background, composure, masculinity and ‘noble’ image are all represented in a very different way, vis-a-vis conventional, native-born Taiwanese athletes. This research adopted critical discourse analysis to examine the coverage from major Taiwanese media outlets, from his debut in 2011 until one year into his retirement, to argue that the representation of Xavier Chen as a de-territorialized, nationalistic athlete embodies Taiwan’s desperate attempt for recognition and assistance from international society through the sport of football.