2005–2007: League Two On 16 May 2000, the former Chinese international football coach
Xu Genbao founded the
Genbao Football Base and enrolled 96 academy members born between 1988 and 1991, who were to be trained in the recently built
Genbao Football Base Arena. Xu Genbao initially had no intention of establishing a professional football club. However, as the youngsters in the Base grew up, the lack of youth football competition in China prompt Xu to set up a football club so that his protégés could earn match experiences in professional football. On 25 December 2005, Shanghai East Asia Football Club was jointly established by Xu Genbao and Shanghai East Asia Sports and Culture Center Co. Ltd, with Xu Genbao being the club chairman. Xu appointed
Claude Lowitz, a French youth coach in the Base, as the team manager. With young players aged between 14 and 17, Shanghai East Asia competed in the 2006
China League Two, the third-tier of the Chinese league system. The team played their home games at Genbao Football Base Arena training ground in
Chongming,
Shanghai, and eventually finished their first season in seventh place. During the campaign, Xu's players broke a few records during the season, with
Cao Yunding being the youngest Chinese goalscorer aged 16 years and 242 days, and
Wu Lei the youngest Chinese professional footballer, aged only 14 years and 287 days. At the end of 2006, Claude Lowitz left the club, and former assistant manager Jiang Bingyao took up the manager position. With lessons learned and experiences gained from their debutante season, the young East Asia FC went on to win the division title in 2007, by beating
Sichuan in the final, and thus gaining promotion to
China League One, the second-tier of the football league.
2008–2012: League One Despite the successful promotion, questions arose as to what would happen to the team, especially given that Xu's previous efforts to create a professional club (
Shanghai 02) ended up being sold off to
Shanghai Shenhua in 2002 due to financial difficulties. In June 2007, Shanghai government came to Xu's rescue with financial aid, in exchange East Asia FC would represent Shanghai in the
2009 National Games of China. With the club in a higher division, Shanghai East Asia moved into the 30,000 seater
Jinshan Sports Centre in
Jinshan District of Shanghai and finished the
2008 China League One division campaign in sixth place. In summer 2009, Shanghai East Asia represented the Shanghai football team and took part in the 2009 National Games. Xu Genbao took up the management post himself and led the team to win gold in the men's football tournament. Meanwhile, in the league, Shanghai East Asia chose the 65,000 seater
Shanghai Stadium as their home stadium for their
2009 China League One campaign. They finished the season in fourth place and just missed out on promotion by a single win, but it was still considered quite an achievement because that team was made up of players under 20 years old, and with no foreign imports. The 2010 league season saw former Chinese international
Fan Zhiyi receive his first management job at the club as well as the introduction of their first-ever foreign players in Macedonian
Nikola Karçev and Haitian
Fabrice Noël. Despite these new signings the club failed to improve upon the previous season's results and finished in fourth place. Failure to gain promotion and financial difficulties caused the club unable to hold onto their rising stars. Before the 2011 season, five of the team's starting players left the club: team captain
Wang Jiayu, Chinese international
Zhang Linpeng, and Chinese under-23 players Cao Yunding,
Jiang Zhipeng, and
Gu Chao. In the following 2011 season, Xu Genbao promoted several young players into the first team and the team finished the season in ninth place. At the beginning of the 2012 season the club sold their team name to sponsor, Zobon Group for 30 million Yuan on a three-year deal, which saw the club change first team's name to Shanghai Tellace on 31 December 2011, while the club's name remains unchanged as Shanghai East Asia. At the end of the season, they won the league title and was promoted to the
Chinese Super League.
2013–present: Chinese Super League , the home ground of Shanghai Port since 2023 On 28 December 2012, Shanghai East Asia changed its first team name again to Port Shanghai F.C., under a 40-million Yuan sponsorship deal with
Shanghai International Port. Within the off-season, on 7 January 2013, the club officially acquired another Shanghai-based football club,
Shanghai Zobon, which had previously played in the
2012 China League Two division before they were dissolved. Most of its players, born between 1993 and 1994 and graduated from Genbao Football Base, were brought back under Xu Genbao's wing and would become the
reserve team of Shanghai East Asia. In the club's debut within the top tier they brought in former Chinese national team manager
Gao Hongbo as their head coach and he would go on to guide the club to a ninth-place finish at the end of the 2013 league season. The Shanghai International Port would decide to strengthen their position within the club and officially took over the whole club on 18 November 2014 and immediately appointed
Sven-Göran Eriksson as their new head coach. During the 2015 winter transfer window, Shanghai SIPG signed eight new players to strengthen the squad:
Sun Xiang,
Davi Rodrigues de Jesus,
Dario Conca,
Kim Ju-Young,
Yang Boyu,
Shi Ke,
Jean Evrard Kouassi, and
Yu Hai – who the club spent 50 million Yuan on. It became the highest transfer record of any Chinese player. The team won the first three games of the season, which creates their best CSL league start in its history. On 9 May, Shanghai SIPG secured a 5–0 victory over their rival Shanghai Greenland Shenhua, and it was their first victory in the
Shanghai Derby. The team signed Ghanaian player
Asamoah Gyan in the summer transfer window. Jean Evrard Kouassi was dropped into the reserve team due to the registration restriction at that time (4 foreign players + 1 Asian foreign player). Shanghai SIPG finished the season in second place with 65 points – just two points behind the champions
Guangzhou Evergrande. It was their best league position in the club's history and they managed to get into the
AFC Champions League qualification. In the beginning of 2016,
SAIC Motor Corporation became one of Shanghai SIPG's main sponsors. The club signed former AFC Champions League & CSL golden boot winner
Elkeson from Guangzhou Evergrande for €18.5 million. It broke the record of the Chinese transfer market. On 9 February, the team secured a 3–0 victory over
Muang Thong United from Thailand in the AFC Champions League qualification round, and successfully went in to the group stage of the ACL. Shanghai SIPG went through the group stage in first place. In the round of 16, Shanghai SIPG faced
FC Tokyo. They lost 2–1 away in the first leg, yet thanks to Wu Lei's late 90th-minute goal in the second leg, the team went through the round of 16 with an
away goal difference. During the summer transfer window, Shanghai SIPG spent €56 million to sign the Brazilian international
Hulk. The team was eliminated in the ACL quarter-finals, and in the CSL, the team ended up in third place with 52 points. In
2018, Shanghai rode the momentum of Wu Lei, who was the league's top scorer in that year, to win their first-ever CSL title. In 2019, they won the
Super Cup for their second top tier trophy. In 2026, Shanghai Port were deducted five points in the
2026 CSL season following an investigation by the Chinese Football Association into football corruption, gambling and match manipulation. ==Ownership and naming history==