Austrian striker Marko Arnautovic left West Ham United for Shanghai SIPG in the Chinese Super League. HONG KONG: A double blow of the coronavirus and a new salary cap has seen the bottom fall out of Chinese football's transfer market, while Odion Ighalo led what could become an exodus of foreign stars.
But with wages now capped at €3 million a year, and the Chinese Super League on hold over the coronavirus outbreak, China isn't the destination it once was. China's domestic football is indefinitely suspended because of the virus outbreak, which has killed nearly 2,800 people in the country and has now spread around the world.
"You are signing these players with the intention of them playing earlier , and there's now this delay. The most significant was a 100 per cent tax on foreign signings of more than 45 million yuan , introduced in 2017.That torpedoed any chance of Gareth Bale, who was on the verge of joining Jiangsu Suning from Real Madrid last summer, coming to China.
The outlay this winter is the lowest since the 2011 window, with CSL clubs relying on free transfers, loans or signings for nominal fees.