Within the past two years, a new league has seemingly come to life in the soccer community. Recent transfers of some of soccer’s biggest names to this league for big wage offers have brought lots of attention to it. The Chinese Super League was founded in May of 2004, according to its website. There are currently sixteen teams in the league.  

The Chinese Super League has targeted many popular players from all around the world bringing much controversy to the whole soccer community. It also weeds out the players who care more about soccer from the players who care more about money. For example, Carlos Tevez, a famous Argentinian forward, has decided he would make a move to this league where he will reportedly earn around £610,000 (about $750,000) a week playing for Shanghai Shenhua, making Tevez the world’s highest-paid player according to Sky Sports. In 2010, however, he claimed that soccer has become all about money and that he was ready to quit because of how the soccer community revolves around money. He contradicts these statements with his transition to the Chinese Super League. It is unlikely that he has moved to China to win the Chinese Super League title; rather it seems that he moved because of the money offer at hand.

On the other hand, many players have chosen loyalty to their club rather than money. An example of a player who fits this category is Chelsea Football Club’s Diego Costa. According to Coral Barry from Metro News, Costa was offered £570,000-a-week (about $705,000) to join the Chinese team Tianjin Quanjian. At Chelsea, Costa currently makes about £3 million (about $3.7 million) per year, making this possible move a huge pay raise. Costa, however, rejected this offer due to his loyalty to his current club. Chelsea rewarded him with a raise because of this.

Unfortunately, many players choose money over loyalty, defacing their appearance to their fans. I believe in loyalty to a club, but if I were a professional soccer player that received an offer from this league that could make me one of the highest-paid players, I would definitely take the offer into consideration. The big question to consider is: how much playing time does the player get for their current club? Players who do not play as much, or that are not as valuable to a club probably would make the move to the Chinese Super League where they could actually get good playing time. Players who start many games for their club moving into this new league show they are only in it for the money, not for their club, league or fans.

The Chinese Super League is a good opportunity for many players because it offers them a chance to play more through expansion of the sport. Players such as Demba Ba, Tim Cahill, Fredy Guarín, Gervinho, Jackson Martinez, Didier Drogba, Axel Witsel, Graziano Pellè, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Oscar, Hulk Alexandre Pato and many others have joined this league. But with the reveal of this league, scandal and corruption follows with players moving for money. I believe that this league will be very successful, but not to the extent of big name leagues in Europe. The overall attendance to home games has shot up since 2012 as seen on World Football’s website. As the Chinese Super League acquires more of soccer’s popular players, fans will want to see these players wearing their team’s jersey, boosting the attendance to games even more in the future.