With the bursting of the gold dollar soccer bubble, the once booming Chinese Super League began to decline rapidly. Many clubs also lost the support of their gold masters and broke their financial chains after the Football Association introduced the neutral name policy.
Against this backdrop, many foreign and naturalized players began to flee the Chinese Super League, the first to bear the brunt of which was former 8-time Chinese Super League champion Guangzhou Evergrande (now renamed Guangzhou).
Since the summer of 2021, Evergrande's large foreign and naturalized players have started to leave the team. Last summer, the team's last naturalized Chinese player, Jiang Guangtai, also moved to Shanghai Port on a free transfer.
Recently, Beijing Guoan's naturalized player Hou Yongyong also left the Chinese Super League to join Norwegian League side Ranheim, and it's hard to say whether another naturalized player, Li Ke, will be able to stay at Guoan in the new season.
While the Chinese Super League has seen a wave of naturalized players "fleeing", one naturalized player is bucking the trend and will be returning to the Chinese Super League. He is the first non-blood naturalized player in Chinese soccer, Eckerson.
Eickson, 33, landed in the Chinese Super League 10 years ago, joining Guangzhou Evergrande. From there, he spent three-and-a-half seasons at Shanghai Port.In the summer of 2019, Ickerson returned to Evergrande, when he had gone from being a foreigner to a local player.
After returning to Evergrande, Ickerson couldn't find the form he had at his peak, but he was still selected for the national team without any doubt. However, his performance in the national soccer team was full of controversy. His drastic weight gain and loss of form made his performance in the preseason unsatisfactory, and he was even abandoned by Li Tie, the former coach of the national soccer team.
Early last year, after Guangzhou defaulted on his salary, Eckerson quickly terminated his contract with the club and returned to Brazil to join Pakistan B team Gremio. However, Aixon's form and ability could no longer adapt to the rhythm of Pakistan B League. Last season, he scored only four goals, and because of his poor form, he was stashed away by the team and left Gremio at the end of last year after his contract with the club expired.
Iversen, who couldn't get along in Brazil, has decided to return to the Chinese Super League, where he will join Chengdu Chengdu for the new season. Obviously, Iverson can't be paid as much as Evergrande in the Chinese Super League. I'm sure no club will pay 10 million euros a year.
In the 2023 season, the FA will introduce the latest salary limit policy for players. Taking this into account, Ickxon's annual salary in Chengdu Rongcheng will be at most 1 million euros, or even less. In other words, in order to return to the Chinese Super League, Ickxon had to take the initiative to reduce his salary by 9 million euros (equivalent to about 65 million yuan).
However, in the last 10 years he played for Everest and Harbor, which made a lot of money for Exxon. He must be doing okay now. Maybe Ickerson's decision to play back in the Chinese Super League this time is really about being recalled to the national soccer team to play for China.
But I'm afraid it's going to be hard for Iverson to be called up by the national team again now that he's in form. Of course, if you can find his shooting boots in the Chinese Super League in the new season, maybe the FA and interim national soccer coach Li Xiaopeng will consider giving him another chance to serve his country.
