Transfer news: Why the snobbery over Graziano Pelle's move from Southampton to China?
Italian is improving the Chinese Super League which is no bad thing
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Your support makes all the difference.There has been a certain amount of disgust expressed in some quarters that Graziano Pelle, aged just 31, would turn his back on playing for Southampton in the self-titled best league in the world and head East to the Chinese Super League.
China, it seems, are not allowed to just flash the cash and snap up talent that might still have something to offer us back home when we have our feet up watching Monday Night Football. How dare Pelle just pocket the dosh and run off to play in the ‘Mickey Mouse’ Chinese League?
Pelle has just played a starring role in Euro 2016 for Italy, the argument goes, so why, other than for mercenary reasons, would he belittle himself and play in China and not stick in the big leagues in Europe?
We don’t mind washed up players, who the Premier League has no more use for, heading to the Orient but we do those we still see as having something to offer.
Well, isn’t this how the Premier League became the financial talent hoover that it is now? It wasn’t always the go-to league. It still isn’t if you can get a gig at Real Madrid, Barcelona or Bayern Munich. But England used to be where washed up Italians came to earn a few quid before retiring after starring in Serie A which was then the more powerful league.
Gianluca Vialli, for example, played 58 times for Chelsea but his best days were behind him. He arrived at Stamford Bridge in 1996, his last appearance for Italy was in 1992. There was no snobbery towards Vialli then. Just delight that we would get to see a brilliant footballer, no matter that he was in his twilight years. (Zlatan Ibrahimovic is following in the same footsteps now). Vialli et al helped make football in England sexy again and helped attract other foreign footballers.
And boom! The Premier League took off.
If it worked for us, shouldn’t it be OK for Chinese football to give it a go too?
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