The inaugural Chinese Super League got a climax fitting for its troubled season.
Penniless Shenzhen Jianlibao clinched the championship, the city's first, with a 3-1 victory over holders Shanghai Shenhua, yet barely 5,000 people in a country of 1.3 billion were at the City Stadium to watch it thanks to the unfathomable decision to schedule all matches in the middle of the afternoon on a working day.
It was a strange end to the strangest of triumphs. Before the match, the Shenzhen city government presented a cheque for 2.5 million yuan, the reward for last season's fourth-place finish. As the game drew to a close, one of the supporters' clubs unfurled a massive 90-foot-long banner - 'Today we are champions, but where will we be tomorrow?' - a reference to the uncertainty of the club's future even after the Huizhong Tianheng buyout of the Jianlibao group.
'Now you can say our team is the model for Chinese football,' declared China and Shenzhen captain Li Weifeng, presiding over his second bizarre finale in the space of a week. 'There's never been a team who stay together without being paid for such a long time like this.'
It's hard to imagine a squad sticking together, let along become champions of their country, when they haven't seen a single yuan in wages since virtually the start of the season in May.
'I said sorry to the players after the match,' coach Zhu Guanghu said, revealing the content of one of the more bizarre dressing-room victory speeches.
'They did what I asked them to do but so far I have not been able to get them their money. They haven't had their salary for seven months, yet they've been fantastic. The most unforgettable time in my five years here has been the last few months, because in such difficult circumstances our players still fought on.'