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Tevez has agreed an even bigger deal worth £615,000-a-week, elevating him above Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as the world’s highest-paid player.
Sportsmail revealed at the weekend that Zlatan Ibrahimovic has turned down an offer from China of more than £1m-a-week in favour of spending another year at Manchester United, no doubt aware that he will still be able to command equally jaw-dropping sums when he eventually leaves Old Trafford.
His United teammate Wayne Rooney was offered £75m over three years by Shanghai SIPG, while Manchester City’s Yaya Toure turned down £577,000-a-week from Jiangsu Suning to stay in the Premier League for a little longer.
Even in the rarefied world of football, these figures are off the scale.
Veteran stars seeking an easy payday at the end of their careers is nothing new, of course.
America was a lucrative stop-off for the likes of Pele, Beckenbauer, Best and Cruyff in the old NASL long before Major League Soccer came along to offer the likes of Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard a last hurrah.
The difference now, however, is that players in their prime are heading to China, lured by the astronomical figures on offer, rather than pursuing their football aspirations at a significantly higher level in Europe or South America.
Oscar is 25 and in the prime of his life. Fellow Brazilian Alex Teixeira was 26 when he turned his back on the chance to join Liverpool at the start of this year and instead signed for Jiangsu Suning.
So too Paulinho when he left Tottenham for Guangzhou Evergrande last year. Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez is the latest Premier League star to be linked with the Chinese Super League at the age of 28.
Sportsmail columnist Jamie Carragher described Oscar’s move as ’embarrassing’. Others would argue that he is seizing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when he is out of favour at Chelsea.
Whichever view you take, there is no doubt that China has very quickly become a viable option for footballers who would never previously have considered playing in the Far East. So how – and why – has the world’s most populous country caught up so fast?
No, not Donald Trump. Chinese President Xi Jinping has a golden vision for football in his country which is driving the Super League revolution.
President Xi has set out a 10-year plan, running from 2015 to 2025, to double the size of the Chinese sports economy to more than £600billion, based on state and private investment in football.
He wants to produce 100,000 players by ploughing money into grassroots football and creating 20,000 new ‘football schools’ and 70,000 pitches by 2020.
His plan is to turn China into a superpower in the sport, capable of qualifying for, hosting and then winning the World Cup. China are currently 83rd in the FIFA rakings, between Antigua & Barbuda and the Faroe Islands.
They have only appeared at a World Cup finals once before, going out at the group stage without scoring a single goal.
The huge offers being made to European and South American stars are possible because Chinese Super League teams have been bankrolled by massive corporate investment.
Shanghai SIPG, Shanghai Shenhua, Jiangsu Suning and Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao – champions for the last six years – have been the biggest spenders willing to pay over the market value to sign big-name stars.
China has also tried to raise its football profile abroad. President Xi was given a guided tour of Manchester City’s new academy last year shortly before China Media Capital announced a state-backed £265m investment in Sheikh Mansour’s company.
West Brom and Aston Villa have also received Chinese backing.
Super isn’t exactly the best word to describe China’s 16-team top-flight right now but it has come a long way since Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba spent a season at Shanghai Shenhua in 2012-13 and swiftly left amid reports of unpaid wages and widespread corruption in the sport.
The world sat up and took notice at the start of this year after the Chinese transfer record was broken three times in the space of 10 days when Jiangsu Suning paid Shakhtar Donetsk £38.4m for Teixeira, having signed Ramires from Chelsea for £25m and seen Guangzhou Evergrande up the ante with a £31m deal for Jackson Martinez from Atletico Madrid.
Now Oscar’s transfer to Shanghai SIPG has raised the bar again.
Attendances for the Chinese Super League are growing steadily and it is expected to enjoy a greater profile over the next five years on the back of a new £935m TV deal with China Media Capital.
Oscar and Tevez will be joining a growing number of ex-Premier League stars in the Far East when the 14th Chinese Super League season kicks off in February.
Former Chelsea players Ramires and Demba Ba play for Jiangsu Suning and Shanghai Shenhua respectively. Graziano Pelle joined Shandong Luneng from Southampton in the summer, former Arsenal winger Gervinho is at Hebei China Fortune, and Paulinho still plays for Guangzhou Evergrande.
