Brazilian striker João Alves de Assis Silva, or simply Jô, became the latest foreign acquisition of Chinese Super League squad Jiangsu Suning FC in this winter transfer window, recent reports say.
The 28-year-old Brazil international joins his countrymen Ramires and Alex Teixeira under Romanian head coach Dan Petrescu's wings in Jiangsu. Ramires moved from Chelsea for a transfer fee of £25 million while Liverpool target Teixeira transferred from Shakhtar Donetsk for £40 million, as per Daily Mail Online.
The trio of Brazilians joins Croatian midfielder Sammir and Australian defender Trent Sainsbury as the two other foreign players of the Nanjing-based Chinese club.
Jô is coming off a short stint with UAE Arabian Gulf League team Al Shabab in Dubai, who just signed him in July of last year. He recorded 13 goals in only eight games played with the squad, via Sportskeeda.
Prior to that, the 6-foot-3 São Paulo, Brazil native spent six seasons in the Brazilian Serie A with Sport Club Internacional from 2011 to 2012 and Clube Atlético Mineiro from 2012 to 2015. He appeared in 36 games and scored five goals for Internacional while he played 116 matches with Mineiro and scored 37 times during the said time periods.
It was rumored that the said deal pushed through after Jiangsu failed to sign another Brazilian big-name, Oscar, after a £58 million bid.
CSL squads had been attracting a lot of international talents this January transfer window and most of them are Brazilians as shown by the transfers of Ramires and Teixeira.
Former England national team head coach and now Shanghai SIPG manager Sven-Goran Eriksson said that the China top flight "is an emerging league, which is why they are attracting such big names" and predicted that "there will be more to follow".
He also said that the "football is improving all the time and they are very ambitious with the national team" as no less than Chinese president Xi Jinping is the sport's main backer in the country.
Jinping recently launched a program to facilitate the improvement of football in China and amateur soccer schools and professional clubs in the Far East nation have all supported the president in his cause.