The Chinese Super League are hunting Europe’s biggest stars and have made their most audacious bid yet.
Real Madrid have received an offer of €300 million from Shanghai Greenland Shenhua for Cristiano Ronaldo, according to Ronaldo’s agent Jorge Mendes.
The offer, which included wages of €100 million a year for the Ballon d’Or, comes after Carlos Tevez was made the world’s highest-paid footballer by the same club.
If Ronaldo were to move to the Far East, his wage would be more than double that of Tevez, and the transfer fee would be almost three times the current record paid by Manchester United to Juventus for Paul Pogba.
But Mendes insists Los Blancos are Ronaldo’s ‘life’, despite the meteoric sums on offer.
“Although they can buy any player in the world, Ronaldo is impossible.
“Money’s not everything and Real Madrid is his club for life,” Mendes told Sky Sports regarding the bid, making clear that such a move is of no interest to his client, although its existence would be another stamp of intention from the Super League that is doing everything to live up to its name in recent years.
The money that teams in the Chinese Super League are paying for top talent is unbelievable. Carlos Tevez for example is reported to be on €40m a year at Shanghai Greenland Shenhua, making him by far the highest paid athlete in a team sport in the world.
So far China has failed to land a true superstar. Someone with the star power to propel the league forward. But if they keep throwing this sort of money around, it is just a matter of time before one of the top 10-20 players in the world moves to China.
The winner in all of this is probably Ronaldo’s great rival Lionel Messi. Messi has only 18 months left on his current contract at Barcelona and has been talking with the Spanish champions about a new deal.
Considering what the Chinese clubs are willing to pay Tevez and Ronaldo, I would expect that Messi’s wage demands to Barcelona just got a little bit higher.
