Chinese soccer teams are richer than I thought!

$ 500,000 ior 6 month contract? The Chinese (some at least) apparently have some spending money.

At current exchange rates $500,000 US is about £270,000.

Jancker was therefore earning (OK being paid) a little over £10,000 per week. In European football this would be pretty small potatoes.

In the Premiership, sure. But Chinese football hardly has comparable income. How many players in, say, League One are on that kind of money?

I suspect that this is a case of a team having one well-paid high-profile western player, and that the rest of the squad are on peanuts.

For a Chinese club, it’s a good chunk of the payroll.

Still, as a former German international playing in increasingly sports-mad China he probably brought in much more revenue than any five Chinese players might.

You are more correct than I at first thought.

I can’t find much data on the subject but one site gives the average salary for a Premiership player for 2005 (I think) as £900,000 per annum, or a touch over £17,000 per week.

I was surprised the figure was so low. Also one has to bear in mind that even this figure is distorted by the Chelsea wage bill. Obviously salaries in League 1 will be substantially lower.

More details on salaries, especially in the lower leagues, would be welcome. I trust this is relevant to the OP.

Here’s one which is relevant even though not about the players themselves:

http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2005/03/23/28798/Managers+at+the+bottom+of+the+league+when+it+comes+to.html