BY TIM PARSONS
Brazil midfielder, Alex Texteira has been bought for £38.4m by Jiangsu Suning, breaking the Chinese transfer record for the third time.
The Chinese Super League’s latest high-profile recruit expressed surprise at the speed of the move, saying it “happened very quickly”. “I immediately wondered whether it would be good for me, my family, the club, and took the appropriate decision,” he added.
But not before a quick search on the world wide web. “I checked out the city and the location I am moving to on the Internet,” he said.
Teixeira also confirmed there was interest from Premier League clubs.
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“Unfortunately, all the proposals that came from them were somewhat windy and did not contain anything concrete,” he said.
Texteira started his football career in Vasco Da Gama, and was part of a Shaktar team that won a 5th consecutive Ukranian premiere league title. He represented the Brazil 2007 under 17 world cup team and also the under 20 Brazil team in 2009. A star player with ability, there aren’t many Brazil players without some stroke of genius under their feet. The country is blessed with talent of varying degrees- the hierachical structure of talent is so high that even the guy at the bottom of the tree is very good
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Only recently, former Chelsea midfielder Ramires, was signed by Jiangsu Suning Ukranian for £25m, followed by Jackson’s Martinez’s £31m move to Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao from Atletico Madrid.
Chinese super leagues clubs have spent a total of about £199.5m (258.9m euros) in their current transfer window, which runs until 26 February. This figure is some £20m higher than the high £175m paid by premiere leagues, and a testament to the huge renewed interest in football in China. Plenty of investment seems to be going into football in China, perhaps in an attempt to make the country eventually a football power. If the CSL continue to spend phenomenal sums on recruiting talented players, the country may dwarf several European countries, including Britain, in its pool of players saturated with talent.
Manchester City, who will play there this summer as past of their next pre-season tour.
They will feature in the International Champions Cup, an annual tournament series that features some of the world’s top clubs
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