Chinese football is buying its way to world domination of beautiful game

DID Graziano Pelle have a dilemma about whether to turn his back on a good career in the Premier League with Southampton when little known club Shandong Luneng offered him a move last summer?

The contract, for £273,000 a week, meant it was almost certainly a no-brainer for a man who is an Italian international but hardly in the elite class.

And the striker’s story perfectly illustrates the astonishing rise of Chinese domestic football — in financial terms if not quality. Five of the 14 best-paid footballers in the world now play in the Chinese Super League (CSL). Brazilian forward Hulk is the fourth bestpaid player on £16.6m a year with Shanghai SIPG — who have just hired manager Andre Villas-Boas on an £11m-a-year contract to replace Sven-Goran Eriksson — that works out at £320,000 a week. Pelle (below) is No6, on more than £14m a year, just behind Manchester United’s Paul Pogba. Argentine Ezequiel Lavezzi at Hebei China Fortune (£13.5m a year), Ramires at Jiangsu Suning (£11.6m) and Jackson Martinez at Guangzhou Evergrande (£11.2m) are the others. To put that in context, they all make more in basic pay than Barcelona’s Luis Suarez — the winner of the Golden Shoe for being the best striker last season in Europe. The best-paid team in the CSL by average salary now is Shandong Luneng, with average first-team pay of £1.47m a year. That is a higher figure than paid by 14 of the 18 teams in the Bundesliga, higher than 15 of the 20 teams in La Liga, higher than 18 of 20 in Ligue 1 and higher than five Premier League clubs.