Hao Haidong (; born 9 May 1970) is a Chinese former international footballer. He currently holds the record for being China's top goalscorer. As a player he represented

Bayi Football Team The Bayi or August First Football Team () or its full name the People's Liberation Army Bayi Football Club () was a football team under the sport branch of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) that played in China's football league system between 19 ...

Dalian Shide Dalian Shide was a professional Chinese football club based in Dalian, Liaoning province, China who played in China's football league system between 1955 and 2012. Their home stadiums were the 55,843 capacity Dalian People's Stadium and then late ...

and

Sheffield United Sheffield United Football Club is a professional football club in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . They are nicknamed "the Blades" due to Sheffield's history of cutlery production. The team have played home games at ...

in a career that saw him win six league titles and two

Chinese FA Cup The Chinese FA Cup (, abbreviated as CFA Cup) is the national knockout cup competition in China organized by the Chinese Football Association. Its current holders are Shandong Taishan, having beaten Shanghai Port in 2021 for a record seventh title ...

. Along with a

Chinese Football Association The Chinese Football Association (CFA) is the governing body for association football, beach soccer and futsal in People's Republic of China (Mainland China). The CFA organizes the men's and women's national teams and administers the country' ...

Player of the Year award and three

Chinese Jia-A League The National Football Jia A League ( simplified Chinese, commonly known as Jia-A, was the highest tier of professional football in the People's Republic of China, during 1994 through 2003, operating under the auspices of the Chinese Football Asso ...

Top goalscorer awards. Since retiring he had a brief spell at management with Dalian Shide and was the General manager at

Hunan Shoking Hunan Shoking Football Club () is a professional China, Chinese Association football, football club based in Changsha, Hunan Province, and participated in the China League One division under licence from the Chinese Football Association (CFA), af ...

before being Chairman of

Tianjin Songjiang Tianjin Tianhai F.C. (; ;) was a Chinese football club. The team was based in Tianjin. History 2006-2010: Formation and League Two On June 6, 2006 the Tianjin Binhai Holdings Limited company would form a new football team based in Hohhot call ...

, which he left in 2012. Hao married former badminton champion

Ye Zhaoying Ye Zhaoying (; born 7 May 1974) is a retired badminton player from Hangzhou, China. Officially ranked as the number one women's singles player in the world for the first time in December 1995, she lost and regained that ranking several times dur ...

in summer 2019.

Club career

Bayi Football Team

Hao Haidong would make a name for himself by rising through the ranks with

. On 31 July 1994, Hao was involved in an on-the-pitch brawl with Craig Allardyce, son of former English manager

Sam Allardyce Samuel Allardyce (; born 19 October 1954), colloquially referred to as Big Sam, is an English football manager and former professional player. Allardyce made 578 league and cup appearances in a 21-year career spent mostly in the Football Lea ...

, in Bayi's league match with Guangdong Winnerway. This resulted in Hao and Allardyce receiving a half-year ban by the

and thus Hao was not allowed to play for the Chinese national team in the

1994 Asian Games The 1994 Asian Games ( ja, 1994年アジア競技大会, ''Senkyūhyakukyūjūyon-nen Ajia kyōgi taikai''), also known as the XII Asiad and the 12th Asian Games ( ja, 第12回アジア競技大会, Daijūni-kai Ajia kyōgi taikai), were held from ...

. While his personal performances with Bayi remained impressive, the team were not genuine title contenders anymore due to the club's struggles with professionalism and a requirement that all their players remain active

People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the China, People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five Military branch, service branches: the People's ...

members. With a significantly improved salary and a chance to win more silverware he would transfer to reigning league champions

at the beginning of the 1997 league season for a club record fee of 2,200,000 yuan at the time.

Dalian Shide

His move to

would be a huge success and he would win the league title and

Chinese FA Super Cup The Chinese FA Super Cup (), formerly named Chinese Football Super Cup (), is a pre-season football competition held before the season begins in China. It is a Chinese football championship contested by the winners of top division of Profession ...

as well as also personally winning the Golden Boot and Golden Ball award in the 1997 season. The following season, Hao would continue to add to his medal collection with another league title and more personal awards while barely losing the

Asian Club Championship The AFC Champions League (abbreviated as ACL) is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation, and contested by Asia's top-division football clubs. It is the most prestigious club competitio ...

as well. While Hao would be applauded for his football achievements and was even starting to be known as the "Chinese

Alan Shearer Alan Shearer CBE DL (born 13 August 1970) is an English football pundit and retired football player and manager who played as a striker. Widely regarded as one of the best strikers of his generation and one of the greatest players in Premi ...

", he would also show a darker aspect of his game after being fined for attacking a player on 15 March 1998 and was suspended for two games. This would also be followed by a year suspension by the

Asian Football Confederation The Asian Football Confederation is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in some countries/territories in Asia and Oceania. It has 47 member countries most of which are located in Asia. Australia, formerly ...

for spitting at a referee during the

Asian Cup Winners' Cup The Asian Cup Winners' Cup was an association football competition run by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The competition was started in 1991 as a tournament for all the domestic cup winners from countries affiliated to the AFC. The winne ...

. Due to the suspension, Hao would miss out on much of the 1999 league season, however this wouldn't hinder him at all and his prolific goalscoring would continue to see him win several more league titles, the

and the

runners-up medal. His stature within Dalian Shide would be so high that when then manager

Milorad Kosanović Milorad Kosanović ( sr-Cyrl, Милорад Косановић, ; born 4 January 1951) is a Serbian former football player and manager. During his playing career, Kosanović represented Proleter Zrenjanin, Vojvodina, Kikinda and Novi Sad, c ...

left the club, Hao was immediately brought in as a caretaker to manage the team during the absence of a full-time manager.

Sheffield United

In January 2005, Hao was nearing the end of his career and received the chance to play abroad as

English Championship The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the En ...

side

were increasingly interested in gaining access to a potentially lucrative footballing market and saw Hao as a symbolic first step in achieving this.

would release him as a gesture of goodwill following his record of good service towards the club and Sheffield United decided to make the transfer symbolic when Hao joined them for a record low transfer fee at the time by signing for £1 in 2005. In January 2005, Hao joined Sheffield United where he suffered from injuries and worked mainly as a coach in Sheffield's academy. His only appearance came as a substitute in the 2005–06 FA Cup on 7 January 2006 in a 2–1 loss against

Colchester United Colchester United Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Colchester, Essex, England. The team competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1937, the club spent its earl ...

. With no further opportunities, Hao retired and returned to China.

International career

Hao enjoyed a stellar international career by playing at the

2002 FIFA World Cup The 2002 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Korea Japan 2002, was the 17th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams organized by ...

and is the record top goalscorer with 41 goals for the Chinese national team. Although China never made progress into Asia’s final qualifying round 2006 (finished behind Kuwait), Hao led his country in a bid to reach Germany. Hao is considered to be the best striker from China in the past two decades.

Personal life

With his ex-wife Chen Yi, Hao has a son,

Runze Hao Runze Hao ( zh, 郝润泽, born 3 May 1997) is a Chinese footballer playing as a defender. The last team that he played for was Radnički Niš in the Serbian SuperLiga. He is the son of Hao Haidong, who is the all-time top scorer of the Chines ...

(), who is also a professional football player, and a daughter named Hao Runhan (郝润涵). Hao married former badminton champion

in summer 2019.

Political views

On 4 June 2020, on the 31st anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Hao and Ye Zhaoying publicly denounced the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...

, including for its mishandling of professional sports,

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

, and the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. "Football in China is a reflection of the country ... it's not the players that make it worse, it's the bureaucrats that damage the whole business by ignoring the rules", they said. They advocated the formation of a " New Federal State of China", a proposal supported by Chinese dissident Miles Kwok and American political strategist

Steve Bannon Stephen Kevin Bannon (born November 27, 1953) is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker. He served as the White House's chief strategist in the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump during t ...

. In response, the Chinese Communist Party first issued statements harshly criticizing Hao and Ye, and then altered course to expunge all references to them from the Chinese-accessible internet—the

Weibo Weibo may refer to: * Microblogging in China, or China-based microblogging services (), including: ** NetEase Weibo (), launched by NetEase ** People's Weibo (), launched by ''People's Daily'' ** Phoenix Weibo (), launched by Phoenix Television ** W ...

accounts of Hao and Ye were deleted, and their online profiles on major portals in China – Sina Sports and Tencent Sport – were expunged. Six days later, in an interview with ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', Hao and Ye reiterated their criticism of one-party rule in China and restated their willingness to advocate for human rights despite potential political and personal costs: "There are many people who think the same way as we do but they don't dare to speak up inside the country – and they are becoming less and less willing to speak."

Career statistics

International goals

Honours

Club

: 1986 *

: 1990

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanist ...

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

Chinese Super Cup The Chinese FA Super Cup (), formerly named Chinese Football Super Cup (), is a pre-season football competition held before the season begins in China. It is a Chinese football championship contested by the winners of top division of Professional ...

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone o ...

Individual

Player of the Year:

Team of the Year:

Top goalscorer:

IFFHS The International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) is an organisation that chronicles the history and records of association football. It was founded in 1984 by Alfredo Pöge in Leipzig. The IFFHS was based in Abu Dhabi for so ...

Legends

References

External links

Hao Haidong's personal website
*
International stats
at teamchina

at sodasoccer.com * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hao, Haidong 1970 births Living people Association football forwards Chinese footballers Footballers from Qingdao China international footballers Chinese football managers 1992 AFC Asian Cup players 1996 AFC Asian Cup players 2002 FIFA World Cup players 2004 AFC Asian Cup players FIFA Century Club Bayi Football Team players Dalian Shide F.C. players Chinese expatriate footballers Chinese expatriate sportspeople in the United Kingdom Sheffield United F.C. players Asian Games medalists in football Footballers at the 1998 Asian Games Asian Games bronze medalists for China Medalists at the 1998 Asian Games