China sending football market to stratosphere

BY WILLIAM HENNELLY

The Chinese Super League is finding that you win some and lose some when it comes to landing the world's top football players.

Carlos Tevez, an Argentine national team star currently with club team Boca Juniors in Buenos Aires, is about to become the highest-paid player in the world.

According to media reports, Tevez, 32, will be paid more than $762,000 a week in a two-year contract with CSL side Shanghai Shenhua, which he is expected to sign next week. The deal adds up to $75 million over two seasons.

Tevez played his last game for Boca on Sunday as fans begged him to stay with signs saying, No te vayas, Carlitos.

Tevez had appeared content to finish his career at Boca Juniors until the CSL came calling with sacks of money.

Yes, many great players will head to where the pitches are greener - and there are none greener than in China now. (Chelsea star Oscar from Brazil is headed to Shanghai SIPG in a $64 million deal reported on Friday.)

But striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic of Manchester United in the Barclays Premier League has reportedly turned down a £120 million (about $149 million) deal from the CSL to stay in England.

Manchester United has confirmed it will offer another year to Ibrahimovic, according to the Daily Mail of London.

The Premier League is generally considered the world's best, if not always in Champions League play but in prestige, and although the CSL continues to peel away some world-class talent, some players prefer competing against the top players.

"Being an emerging league and certainly not the first choice of most star players, football clubs in the CSL have to pay skyrocketing salaries to attract top footballers," Andrea Sartori, global head of sports advisory practice for KPMG, whose Football Benchmark reports cover the business of soccer, told China Daily USA. "The long-term cost-benefit analysis of these investments has still to be demonstrated."

The Daily Mail reported that the CSL planned to offer Ibrahimovic £56 million this past summer, but after the form he's shown this season at Manchester, they made the more dramatic pitch.

Ibrahimovic, 35, who retired as a stalwart for the Swedish national team after Euro 2016, is enjoying a renaissance at Old Trafford this season with 11 goals in 16 matches for Jose Mourinho's team.

"As long as he (Mourinho) needs me and the team needs me, I'm here," Ibrahimovic has said. "In my mind, I'm fresh. I'm like a 20-year-old boy. I feel fresh, I feel good and I'll keep going," the rangy star said on Saturday.

He went on later that day to score both goals for United in a 2-0 victory over West Bromwich Albion.

While Ibra might not be ready to make the move to China now, the money will probably stay on the table for him in 2018.

Broadcaster

Greg Fountain is a copy editor and occasional presenter for China Daily. Before moving to Beijing in January, 2016 he worked for newspapers in the Middle East and UK. He has an M.A in Print Journalism from the University of Sheffield, a B.A in English and History from the University of Reading.