Gael Kakuta, Andre Villas-Boas stung by new Chinese Super League rules
By George Perry
The Chinese Super League’s transfer fees caught even the Chinese Football Association off-guard. Former Chelsea men Gael Kakuta and Andre Villas-Boas are now stuck holding the bag from new regulations cracking down on foreigners.
Ex-Chelsea player Gael Kakuta may have just started to feel some sense of solidity at Hebei China Fortune. But staying sadly true to his career path so far, he is now back on loan to La Liga.
The Chinese Football Association recently imposed a rule that a Chinese Super League side can have only three foreign players per game. Kakuta – the perpetual odd-man-out – is making way for Stephane Mbia and Gervinho to fill those foreign-born billets in Manuel Pelligrini’s squad.
Kakuta will spend the remainder of the season at Deportivo in La Liga. His last two clubs were also in Spain. His final loan from Chelsea was to Rayo Vallecano, where he scored five goals in 35 games. He then secured a permanent transfer in 2015 to Sevilla, which he left after making only two appearances.
The new rules come in response to the wave of non-Chinese players accepting the ludicrously lucrative offers to play in China. Chelsea have been a reliable source of talent for the Chinese Super League. Didier Drogba, Ramires, Demba Ba and, most recently, Oscar, moving to the Far East from west London.
Former Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas is Oscar’s coach at Shanghai SIPG. Villas-Boas is particularly incensed at how the Chinese Football Association imposed these rules. The new edicts went into effect immediately, soon before the new season. Villas-Boas likely shares many managers’ frustration at how the rules transfer and training strategies.
"This decision should have been made after the season, or with a certain buffer. Such a huge change shouldn’t be announced about a month before the new season. Most of the clubs’ team-building plans have been in accordance with the previous rules. – Evening Standard"
Gael Kakuta has played more games in La Liga than any other league, so he is returning to familiar ground. His season at Rayo Vallecano was his most productive and consistent at the senior level. His entire career at Chelsea was a particularly ignominious chapter in the club’s recent history. He signed from La Liga under a cloud of scandal that required an appeal to the Court for Arbitration in Sport. Chelsea won those appeals, but the turmoil set the stage for the rest of Kakuta’s time nominally in Blue.
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Hopefully the dust will settle in the Chinese Super League so Kakuta, too can settle there. His time at Chelsea reinforced the worst perceptions of the Blues’ loan army. He does not deserve to be the poster boy for the unforeseen and erratic consequences of the Chinese Super League’s growing pains.