Beijing: After outspending even the English Premier League with an avalanche of cash to assemble a glittering array of foreign footballing talent, the 14th version of the Chinese Super League (CSL) finally gets underway today.
Website www.transfermarkt.com estimates, and in the world of international transfers these can only be estimates, that the CSL's 16 clubs spent a combined $411m in the Chinese transfer window, which closed on Tuesday.
The result is that over the next nine months the skills of players such as Carlos Teves, Demba Ba, Oscar, Hulk, Ramires and Gervinho will be entertaining Chinese fans from subtropical Guangzhou in the south to Changchung in the rust belt of the northeast.
The quality on the bench is only a little less marked with Andre Villas-Boas at Shanghai SIPG, Manuel Pellegrini at Hebei China Fortune and Felix Magath at Shandong Luneng.
It is, though, Luiz Felipe Scolari, the World Cup-winning former Brazil coach, who will be favourite to land the title for the third year in a row at Guangzhou Evergrande in November.
The southern powerhouse were the first club to invest serious money in their team and the return has been six successive CSL titles, three of the first four coming with another World Cup winner in Marcello Lippi at the helm.
While Guangzhou begin their title defence with a tough home fixture against Beijing Guoan, Jiangsu's trip to Shanghai on Sunday is perhaps more representative of the new era in Chinese football.
The change was a response to concerns that clubs were "burning money" in the pursuit of success and that the influx of foreign players would act to the detriment of local talent.
The driving force behind the spending was the stated desire of President Xi Jinping to improve the national team and massively expand the Chinese sports market.
