Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
It’s now time for the second guest article of 2017.
That honour falls to Luke who is the owner of the website SET PIECE STORIES (if you have a couple of minutes please check his site out) and he has been kind enough to take the time to create the piece on the Chinese Super League, so without further ado it’s over to Luke.
As we all know, the Chinese Super League clubs have been luring some of the world’s top talent to play in China with all the money they have to throw at them. For example Shanghai SIPG recently signed Oscar from Chelsea for around £52m and have given him a stupid wage of £400,000 a week.
If you thought that wage bill was high Tevez was recently signed by Shanghai Shenhua in which he will become the worlds highest paid player earning over £600,000 a week. They are just two of the many talented footballers China have been able to lure with their money power to play their trade in the Chinese Super League, and it is not just players it is also managers such as Andre Villas-Boas, formally of Chelsea.
However this could all soon change as the Chinese FA have just announced a change in the way Chinese football works. From the start of the new season (March) all Chinese clubs are only allowed to play a maximum of 3 foreign players on the pitch at the same time. So this is likely to slow down the amount of talented footballers going to China over playing in one of Europe’s elite leagues.
This however does not stop them from paying players incredible amounts and spending their money outrageously, as this has been shown by Tianjin Quanjian having a £45m bid rejected for Monaco’s Falcao. What this will do is make players think more about joining the Chinese clubs, as the clubs will be allowed to have 5 foreign players in their squad (starting and subs).
But it is whether the players want to risk joining a team which already has 3 world class players in, and then risk playing or being on the bench and earning lots of money at the same time. It will definitely make those players subject of these huge bids think more about what they are doing and not just chase the money.
Is the Chinese Super League really ruining football though? If you really think about it they are doing exactly what the big clubs in the Premier League do and paying big money for the best players, all be it they are taking the mickey with regards to the player wages. At the moment I would say that all of these players are going to China for the money, but there could come a point when the Chinese rules have changed and they have many world class players over there.
If this was the case then it wouldn’t just be the money that players would move for, it would also be the competitiveness of the league and to play against and with all the world class players. I would say at the moment yes they are ruining football with the amount of money they are throwing about at players, it is just ridiculous, but in years to come if this new rule changes, it could be a whole new story and football could have completely changed by then.
Thanks Luke for your article, hopefully Luke will provide some more insights in the future. Do you agree with him – please feel free to leave your comments below
If you would like to have any content posted on here then please feel free to contact me at realfootballmanwordpress@gmail.com and hopefully we can get something of yours up as well.
