TEDA Soccer Stadium in Tianjin Photo: (Craighong CC BY-SA 3.0)
There's a football revolution going on in China. The country's influence on the world game and its economics has never been greater.
Earlier this year the Chinese transfer record (the amount a club pays for a single player) was broken 3 times in the space of 10 days.
The record rose from the NZ$52 million paid by Jiangsu Suning for Chelsea's Ramires to the $80 million paid by the same club for Shakhtar Donetsk's Alex Teixeira in just over one week!
Meanwhile, total transfer spending of $500 million by Chinese clubs over the winter transfer window outstripped the English Premier league for the first time.
Owen Gibson is the chief sports correspondent of The Guardian and has been writing about China's surging influence in the world game.
Brazilian Alex Teixeira, now playing for Chinese club Jiangsu Suning Photo: (CC BY 2.0)
Owen Gibson Photo: Supplied
