China to lower club quotas for foreign players

By Sampson Adedeji

China will lower the number of overseas players allowed on domestic teams from five to four in an effort to cool the red-hot market for foreign talent, its football authority said. Clubs in the mega-rich Chinese Super League have

splashed out more than $400 million on domestic and foreign players this year after President Xi Jinping laid out

his vision of turning the country into a football powerhouse. The new restriction on the number of foreign players allowed on club rosters was announced Friday by the Chinese Football Association, the sport's governing body in China. The CFA said only three foreigners from the same team would be allowed to play at any one time, according to a statement posted on the official social media account of the state-run Soccer Newspaper. "High-level foreign players have brought energy to the CSL

and made CSL games more enjoyable, but they've created financial burdens for clubs and reduced opportunities for

mainland players," the CFA said.
The new rules come a week before the CSL transfer window opens and a day after Shanghai SIPG club confirmed it had signed Chelsea's Oscar for a reported 70.5 million euros.

Chinese teams broke the Asian record for the most expensive signings three times in just 10 days in the January-February transfer window, and moved it still higher when Brazil's Hulk joined SIPG for 55.8 million euros in July.

The new rules would take effect when the 2017 season started in March and would "promote the long-term

development of every club within the professional league", the CFA said.

The official People's Daily warned last week that the explosive growth in Chinese football spending was a

bubble, noting the eight billion yuan ($1.15 billion) in overall spending this year "far exceeded the economic

value brought to the league". But the huge outlay on players shows no sign of easing, with Argentine forward Carlos Tevez reportedly considering an 84 million euro offer to join Shanghai Shenhua.