Shop till you drop. China has been busy with a buying spree since the New Year Day, snapping up big name footballers with the most money in the international transfer market.
Up to this week, the Chinese Super League (CSL), the country's premier professional soccer league, has spent more than 286 million U.S. dollars, more than tiwce what it spent last summer.
The splurge kicked off as Shanghai SIPG imported Brazilian striker Elkeson de Oliveira Cardoso with 18.5 million euros on Jan. 21 from Guangzhou Evergrande, defending CSL champion and Asian Champions League winner.
The CSL runner-up hopes to enhance its competitiveness as a new-comer of the Asian Champions League by buying the 26-year-old striker, who scored 77 goals in three seasons for Evergrande, and scored the winning goal for Evergrande in the Asian Champions League final last November.
But Shanghai SIPG didn't hold the transfer record for long. The record has been smashed several times in a month, the latest by Jiangsu Suning, who lavished 50 million euros to acquire Brazilian midfielder Alex Teixeria from Ukraine club Shakhtar Donetsk on Feb. 5.
The 26-year-old star will join compatriots, former Chelsea midfielder Ramires and former Brazil international striker Jo. The star cast made Jiangsu Suning one of the favorites in the upcoming CSL season, which will start in March.
Evergrande hasn't saved money, either. The champion club signed Atletico Madrid striker Jackson Martinez on a four-year contract for a fee of 42 million euros. But compared with what it had shelled out last summer, the club seems to keep a lower key.
Having tasted defeat last year, CSL sides Shandong Luneng and Beijing Guoan respectively signed Brazil center-back Gil and Turkey international Burak Yilmaz but lay low till February 26 when China's transfer window closed.
