Anelka cannot save Chinese football

The 16 clubs in the top Chinese football league spent about 3 billion yuan ($476 million) buying foreign players this year including French star Nicolas Anelka. Surely no one expected that the Chinese Super League would get such a phenomenal injection of capital before the crackdown on corruption in the sport is barely finished.

The Chinese Super League has caught the attention of the world, although this is not for the quality of the matches, but because of the enormous amounts of money being splashed around. Today the two biggest buyers in the Super League are both from rich Guangdong province and sponsored by real estate developers. It is probably the money they have made in the red-hot housing market since 2008 that is now supporting the rise of their clubs.

The Super League was among the world's top 10 this year in terms of the amount of money spent on foreign players. Although the other side of the coin was few Chinese players were sold to foreign clubs.