China imposes 100% tax on transfer fees for foreign footballers

China has imposed a new "100% tax" on transfer fees for foreign footballers - signalling a possible end to big money signings.

Under the new rules, loss-making clubs will have to pay the same amount again into a domestic development fund, effectively doubling the cost of importing talent from abroad.

The Chinese Football Association (CFA) says the money will be used to train young players, and warned Super League clubs to "consider the healthy development of Chinese football" and "invest rationally".

The move is thought to be an attempt to tackle the fashion for multi-million pound signings of foreign players in recent years, and the perception that the country's football spending was spiralling out of control.

Carlos Tevez moved to Shanghai Shenhua on a reported £71.6m deal in December, with Chelsea's Oscar signing for rivals Shanghai SIPG for an estimated £52m.

"There's a lot of money, excessive money, being spent on these foreign imports," Mark Dreyer, founder of China Sports Insider, explained.

"It's not really helping Chinese football, so the intention is to stop that extraordinary spending.

"The intentions behind the rules are pretty good, and pretty honourable, it's just the way that they have been implemented is going to cause a lot of problems that could have been foreseen."

more here: http://news.sky.com/story/china-puts-100-tax-on-foreign-stars-in-bid-for-world-cup-glory-10920902

That will make a massive difference, as the proposed big money signings are very unlikely to happen now. That is bad news both for players who wanted to move out there, and have perhaps already fallen out with their manager over their desire to do so - Diego Costa. And players who have gone out there already, thinking they are the trailblazers and an influx of stars are about to follow you into this whole new World - oops, Oscar.

Seems a strange move, as a league that was growing at an incredible rate of knotts will possibly now hit the buffers. I guess there was always a balance to be struck between getting the Chinese market interested in their own domestic league, but ultimately having enough home grown players in it that the national side begins to compete, but this seems a very dramatic change, and will almost stop the big signings overnight.

When does Gus blame this new rule ?

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk