Carlos Tevez completes move to Shanghai Shenhua
Chinese Super League club Shanghai Shenhua have confirmed the signing of Carlos Tevez in a deal which will make the striker the world’s highest-paid player.
The 32-year-old Argentinian will reportedly earn around €720,000 a week. Although no financial details of the deal were released, reports have suggested that the Chinese club paid €84m for Tevez.
Should that figure be true it would make Tevez the world’s sixth most expensive player, behind Paul Pogba, Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo, Gonzalo Higuain and Neymar
Chinese clubs have spent heavily over the past year to attract mainly South American stars. Last week, Shenhua’s city rival Shanghai SIPG signed Oscar from Chelsea for £60m.
Shenhua finished fourth in the league last season, 16 points behind the champions Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao.
Tevez, who played for West Ham United, Manchester United, Manchester City and Juventus during a decade in Europe after leaving boyhood club Boca for Brazil’s Corinthians in 2005, ended his second spell with the Argentine club on a high.
Having helped the club win the league title last year, Tevez starred in a 4-2 win over arch-rivals River Plate in the ‘superclasico’ earlier this month, a victory that lifted Boca into first place in the championship.He scored 25 goals in 56 games during his second spell in Buenos Aires.
The club said in a message: “Good luck Carlitos. You will always be in our hearts.”
He joins two former Premier League strikers at Shenhua in Demba Ba and Obafemi Martins and he will be coached by former Chelsea palyer Gus Poyet, who became Shenhua’s manager in November.
A statement on the club’s website read: “Shanghai Greenland Shenhua FC reached a transfer agreement with Argentina Club Atletico Boca Juniors. Carlos Alberto Tevez is officially joined Shanghai Shenhua.”
Other stars to join Chinese clubs include the Brazilians Hulk, Ramires and Paulinho, Colombian striker Jackson Martinez,Argentine forward Ezequiel Lavezzi and Italian striker Graziano Pelle.
Other managers in the Chinese Super League include Guangzhou Evergrande coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, Shanghai SIPG coach Andre Villas-Boas, and Hebei China Fortune’s Manuel Pellegrini.
