2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia: Aussies concede China club popularity was primarily ‘down to money’

FOR a while it was a one-way traffic. Aussies flocked to cashed-up leagues around Asia, particularly China. The flow reached its peak in early 2016. Then the gravy train, just as suddenly, dried up.

Trent Sainsbury played 34 games in China but is now on loan in Switzerland.

FOR a while it was a one-way traffic. As cashed-up leagues around Asia, and China in particular, discovered the merits of Australian footballers, lucrative contracts turned the heads of players who previously would have had European football as their target.

Ange Postecoglou looked increasingly alarmed as two years ago, the flow reached its peak.

By January 2016 three of Postecoglou’s first-choice centrebacks - Trent Sainsbury, Matthew Spiranovic and Ryan McGowan - had gone to China. Tim Cahill was already there, having taken a deal that Tomi Juric declined.

Trent Sainsbury played 34 games in China but is now on loan in Switzerland.

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Apou Giannou, the Greek striker Postecoglou courted for the Socceroos, switched to China around the same time.

A year later, Robbie Kruse and fringe Socceroo James Holland went the same way. James Troisi quit Juventus for Saudi Arabia, then after six months went to China. Jokes were made among agents about creating the “Asiaroos”.

And then the gravy train, just as suddenly, dried up.

Desperate to boost its own players, the Chinese FA capped the number of foreigners who could play in a game.

Players also got tired of multiple instances of non-payment, particularly when they fell out of favour. At one stage the players’ union was chasing almost $3m in unpaid wages from Chinese clubs.

Though Sainsbury is officially still on the books of Jiangsu Suning after a loan move to Switzerland, only one Australian is now playing in China.

For all that some claimed - and still claim - that there were football reasons for going to China, the primary motivation was simple.

Tim Cahill played for Shanghai Shenhua and Hangzhou Greentown in China.

“I obviously only went there for the money,” said Kruse this week, and he was hardly the only one.

“I challenge anyone in any profession, who is offered 15-20 times their salary, not to change jobs,” said Tony Rallis, Sainsbury’s agent.

“I find it strange when players get criticised for wanting to maximise their income - isn’t that what most people do?”

Sainsbury has spoken of wanting to earn enough so his father didn’t have to “break his body” anymore by working.

The sums involved were mind-boggling. The salaries for the likes of Sainsbury and Spiranovic were multi-million-dollar. One player who went on a short-term contract earned $750,000.

Debate has raged over whether the football standard was worth that money.

“Ever since Sainsbury went to China, every time he has played for the national team the consensus has been how important he is to the team and how he has raised his game,” said Rallis.

“The truth is he was playing against better strikers in China, the likes of Demba Ba, than he was in Holland previously.”

Jackson Irvine turned down on offer to play in China.

Some players chose a different path. Jackson Irvine turned offers from China said to be around $8m at the time many of his teammates were heading there.

“It wasn’t the right time in my career,” Irvine told News Corp Australia this week.

“That’s absolutely no criticism intended of those who did go, everyone’s circumstances are different.

“It would have been a purely financial decision and I’m lucky enough to come from a comfortable background - at this stage I didn’t feel the need.

“Maybe when I’m older, I’ll think, you idiot!”

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Originally published as 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia: Aussies concede China club popularity was primarily ‘down to money’