Money may be the real reason why big-name players are joining the Chinese Super League, according to an article by Shanghai Daily.
To add insult to injury, this proliferation might not help the country's national team, said Tim Cahill, an Australian athlete based in China.
In a short period of time, the Chinese record transfer fee has been broken four times. The recent record was for Brazilian midfielder Alex Teixeira. According to Shanghai Daily, Jiangsu Suning paid a total of 50 million euros ($56 million) to get him from Shakhtar Donetsk.
Prior to that transfer, Jiangsu purchased Chelsea's Ramires for 28 million euros, while Guangzhou Evergrande bought Atletico Madrid's Jackson Martinez for 42 million euros.
This voracious appetite for big-name athletes in Chinese football teams shows the ambition within Chinese football, said Cahill, who now plays for Shanghai Shenhua.
"When I first went to China I knew the vision, I knew what was behind it and I knew what they wanted to do. To see where it's come to now and where we're at, it's pretty crazy," said Cahill in an interview with Fox Sports Australia last Sunday, Feb. 7.
"It's crazy to see but it's only going to get worse," Cahill added. "This is going to be massive, soon they'll break the AU$100 million ($70 million) mark easily."
Chinese football clubs might have no problems in making big-name purchases, but Cahill thinks such moves have become too much of priority instead of concentrating on talent.
"The choices that players are making are not about football like it was in my day, they're purely about personal gains and it depends what you want as an individual," he said.
These big-name transfers are also doing little to help promote homegrown Chinese talent make a name in the Chinese Super League.
"With this investment in the players, there's a Catch 22. Does it help the Chinese? To a certain extent, no," Cahill said. "The most difficult area for the Chinese national team is attacking, they can't score goals. Everything else, they're technically gifted, they're great, I've spent a year with these kids. But when you sign players like this (Texeira, Martinez, Ramires) everything is up to us. If we don't deliver, it doesn't happen."