Recently, Shanghai Harbour's foreign aid and Brazilian midfielder Paulinho has officially become a member of UAE club Bata. According to the reports disclosed by foreign media, Paulinho's transfer fee reached 3 million euros, which is equivalent to about 24 million yuan. SIPG has been really smart in this operation as they were able to sell Paulinho at a high price as they are about to end his contract. With the money earned from this deal, SIPG has enough money to pay the salaries of the 8 Chinese internationals in their squad.
Shanghai Harbour brought in a new foreigner, Joao, in the summer transfer window and the foreigner quota was full. In the end, it was decided to deregister Paulinho from the CSL in order to make room for Joao. Considering that the contract between Paulinho and Shanghai Hong Kong will expire in less than five months, it is usually difficult to sell such a player at a satisfactory price. However, Shanghai Hong Kong sold the player, who was on the clean sheet and about to expire, for a whopping 24 million dollars, which is almost a "windfall".
Based on the highest salary of a Chinese homegrown player, which is less than 3 million yuan after tax, this huge sum of 24 million yuan can almost cover the annual salary expenses of Shanghai Port's eight active international players, including Yan Junling, Zhang Linpeng, Wu Lei, Wang Shenchao, Li Shuai, Xu Xin, Buytijiang and Li Ang. For Shanghai Port to extract the residual value of the "redundant" Paulinho to this level, it is really only a profit.
Former Chinese Super League (CSL) landlord clubs like Shanghai Harbour have also had to be extra cautious with their transfer fees due to a significant reduction in investment in recent years. Paulinho has had an average season in the Chinese Super League, and in the past, he might have terminated his contract early with Shanghai Harbour when it was nearing its expiry. But now, Shanghai Harbour have also learned the trick of getting high cash from surplus players, which is an improvement for the Chinese Super League clubs.
