Shanghai Shenhua Football Club (Chinese: 上海申花足球俱乐部; pinyin: Shànghǎi Shēnhuā Zúqiú Jùlèbù) is a Chinese professional football club based in Shanghai, that competes in the Chinese Super League, the top tier of Chinese football. Shanghai Shenhua plays its home matches at the Shanghai Stadium, located within Xuhui District.

The owner of Shanghai Shenhua is Shanghai Jiushi Group, a state-owned cultural and sports operation company in Shanghai. Shanghai Shenhua is one of the four clubs to have never been relegated from the Chinese top-flight since the Chinese Super League's foundation in 2004. The term shen hua literally translates as "the Flower of Shanghai" in English – shen is one of the alternative names for Shanghai and hua means flower in Chinese.

The club's predecessor was the municipal-run semi-pro club Shanghai Football Club. The team predominantly played in the top tier, where they won several domestic league and cup titles. On 10 December 1993, the club was reorganized to become a completely professional football club so they could play in the 1994 Chinese Jia-A League season, making them one of the founding members of the first fully professional top-tier leagues in China. Shenhua have won 6 Chinese FA Cup and a record 5 Chinese FA Super Cup.

According to Forbes, Shenhua was the 6th most valuable football team in China, with a team value of $106 million, and an estimated revenue of $29 million in 2015.

Shanghai Shenhua's predecessor was originally called East China, a team name used as far back as 1910 for football in the multi-sport event Chinese National Games. The local Shanghai government sports body decided to use this name for their new club, founded on 1 November 1951, to take part in China's first fully nationalized national football league tournament, where they finished second in the league that year. The football league gradually expanded and the team was allowed to name themselves after their own province of Shanghai in 1957. Soon afterwards, by 1961, Shanghai started to establish themselves as a major football team within China when they won their first league title. This was then quickly followed by their second league title in 1962. However, in 1966, because of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, football in China was halted and Shanghai was unable to play. When football returned in China, Shanghai was able to return to the top tier. However, they were unable to regain any of the dominance that they had previously shown and were even relegated in 1980. Though they were able to be quickly promoted in the following season, they spent many years without actually winning any titles until Wang Houjun led them to win the Chinese FA Cup in 1991, which was their first trophy in 29 years.

Throughout the 1990s, the Chinese Football Association was demanding more professionalism from their football teams and while many were semi-professional, Shanghai would be one of the first when they gathered sponsorship from Yu Zhifei and the local company named Shenhua ("Flower of Shanghai") on 10 December 1993, founding Shanghai Shenhua. This then saw Shanghai hire their first professional manager in Xu Genbao, who was the previous China national team manager, in 1994. The move would quickly see Shanghai win the second professional football league title by the end of the 1995 league season. When Xu left, Shanghai attempted to bring in several foreign coaches to add more experience to the team. However, few achieved any success despite being close on several occasions, except for Muricy Ramalho's brief spell when the club won the 1998 Chinese FA Cup. By the end of 2001, the Shenhua group ended their sponsorship of the club and were replaced by SVA and the Shanghai Media & Entertainment Group. The club changed its name to Shanghai Shenhua SVA SMEG Football Club. The team, however, remained unique as it still retained "Shenhua" in its name, whereas many other teams dropped the name of their former sponsors completely. On the pitch, the club would take over Shanghai 02, a youth football team set up by Xu Genbao, while also bringing in a new manager in Wu Jingui, who built a new squad predominantly using many from the Shanghai 02 squad and despite struggling in his debut season, he was able to win the league title in 2003.

In 2007, the owner of inner-city rival Shanghai United, Zhu Jun and his company The9 Limited, bought a majority share of Shanghai Shenhua and began to merge Shanghai United into Shanghai Shenhua. His first act was to replace the previously successful existing head coach Wu Jingui with Shanghai United's Osvaldo Giménez. The appointment was to prove highly disruptive and Wu Jingui was quickly brought back as the head coach after only a few months, but was sacked on 9 September 2008. Jia Xiuquan took over his position on the same day. This was followed by the club adding to their backroom staff when, on 1 January 2009, Shenhua made Chinese football history by becoming the first Chinese team to hire a foreign CEO and a technical director. The club hired former manager Osvaldo Gimenez as their chief executive officer. One day later, former PSV Eindhoven technical director Stan Valckx joined Shenhua in the same position.

After a disappointing 2011 season in the Chinese Super League, Zhu Jun decided to bring in a marquee player, so on 12 December 2011, it was confirmed that Chelsea striker Nicolas Anelka would be arriving in Shanghai in January 2012, while six days later, it was announced that his compatriot Jean Tigana would be the head coach from the 2012 season. Tigana was fired after a string of poor results and was replaced by former Argentina national team coach Sergio Batista to lead the team. After a successful season playing for Chelsea and winning the 2011–12 UEFA Champions League, Ivorian striker Didier Drogba signed a two-and-a-half-year deal with Shenhua. This was soon followed by the signing of Colombian international footballer Giovanni Moreno from Argentinian club Racing Club. These signings were intended to boost the club's title challenge and see Zhu Jun's investment within the club reach 150 million Yuan, which he believed gave him a controlling stake of 70 percent, as promised by the other shareholders. When the other shareholders decided not to agree to this arrangement, Zhu Jun decided to pull his funding of the club, which resulted in the team finishing in a disappointing ninth place and both Anelka and Drogba leaving the club. The relationship between Zhu Jun and the other shareholders became even more fractious at the beginning of the 2013 league season when the Chinese FA issued the club with a six-point deduction for match-fixing ten years prior and a fine of one million Yuan. This would lead to a shareholder dispute between the other shareholders SVA, Shanghai Media Group, Shanghai Electric Group, and Huangpu SASAC on who should pay for this fine, which saw a gap in the club finances that saw Rolando Schiavi, Patricio Toranzo, and Giovanni Moreno refuse to play the 31 March 2013, league game against Liaoning Whowin because of unpaid wages.