Chinese soccer club that loaned Montero to Caps involved in cash controversy

The controversy over how much Chinese soccer clubs owe to players and other clubs has a Whitecaps connection, if reports are to be believed.

A report this week in the U.K. says a vast majority of clubs in the Chinese Super League had debts they needed to clear — accrued through either missed wages to players or getting behind on transfer payments — and are in trouble with the country’s top soccer body.

Thirteen clubs have been warned by the Chinese Football Association to sort out their debts by Aug. 15 or face expulsion from the league, The Daily Mirror reports.

But according to the South China Morning Post, some Chinese clubs in question said the issue was overblown and the debts were being cleared.

A spokesman for Shenhua, a club that signed Carlos Tevez on a massive contract and one of the baker’s dozen apparently under threat, told the Post, “at this moment, we can’t guarantee that we’ve already paid off the compensation fees because a player, especial- ly a foreign player, might have played for many clubs, including some minor clubs before joining Shenhua. We might have forgotten or neglected one or two of them inadvertently.”

Tianjin TEDA, the club that added striker Fredy Montero a year ago before loaning him in February to the Whitecaps, is one of the 13 clubs identified by the Chinese Football Association as needing to sort out their finances.

The club attracts crowds about the same size as the Whitecaps; in 2015, Tianjin’s revenue was reportedly about $15 million, a little less than what the Whitecaps made.

Montero was signed on a season-long loan by the Caps after Tianjin ran out of international roster spots because of a change in the league’s quota system.

The Whitecaps have an option to make the move permanent at the end of the season — if Tianjin is having financial troubles, that clearly would play in Vancouver’s favour.

But the team said they have no insight into Tianjin’s plight, so we’re left to speculate about how it all plays out.

NICK PROCAYLO/PNG Fredy Montero was loaned to the Vancouver Whitecaps this season by Tianjin TEDA, one of 13 soccer clubs in China that must sort out their finances.