Opinion | Why China’s fears over capital flight and corruption may have dictated new football rules
The Chinese Football Association announced sweeping new laws to the governance of the game that appear to have been dictated by a government extremely suspicious of the massive sums clubs have been spending
England has been quite put out in the last two winter transfer windows, as the Chinese Super League overtook it as the world’s most revoltingly spendthrift football country.
The CFA’s announcement that the number of foreigners allowed would be reduced to three was a great surprise, especially with the new season just weeks away and after some clubs had already spent fortunes.
But China’s median annual income is about 1.1 per cent of the US$800,000 Carlos Tevez will reportedly earn every week: each time he scores for Shanghai Shenhua it will remind the masses that the country’s income inequality is among the world’s worst.
Not the kind of propaganda the government had in mind when it demanded China become a “football superpower”.
