Their majority shareholder was Chinese real estate company Hengyuan Corporation.

Playing at the bottom of the Chinese football pyramid in the third tier the club brought in Li Xiao to manage the team.

Li Xiao returned to manage the team until November 27, 2008, when he decided to resign at the end the season.

In 2018 the club's owner Xu Guoliang and his company the Hengyuan Corporation would become embroiled in a bitter dispute with the Bank of Shanghai where he claimed that they had embezzled more than 20 billion yuan of his assets from his company and that now all of his assets were frozen.

[8] With the club's owner in financial difficulties they would sell any player to remain afloat, however this resulted in their relegation at the end of the 2019 league season.

With even more of a loss of revenue from being in the third tier the club would admit to the Chinese Football Association that they were in financial difficulties and were unable to pay the teams wages for the whole of the 2019 league season so they decided to disband on 3 February 2020.

The club's first top flight derby encounter occurred 12 May 2012 against Shenhua in a result that ended in a 0–0 draw.

Players Jiang Zhipeng and Wang Jiayu had represented both teams before the two clubs met in their first derby on 2 June 2013, which resulted in a 6–1 victory to Shanghai SIPG.