Could Didier Drogba make his recent visit to Chelsea a permanent return amid reports of infighting at Shanghai Shenhua?
Didier Drogba was back at Chelsea’s Cobham training ground on Tuesday. It is the first time I have seen somebody’s name trending worldwide for simply coming home to see old work friends during some downtime.
Whilst many Chelsea fans were perhaps getting excited about a potential move back to Stamford Bridge for the mercurial Ivorian I don’t think we should be getting carried away, he has just signed a reported £250,000 a week lucrative deal with Chinese side Shanghai Shenhua not to mention the amount of legal obligations probably involved including image right obligations and of that sort.
But maybe there is substance in the idea. Didier Drogba’s side Shanghai are reportedly going through a small inter-club war as their main investor becomes increasingly disgruntled with his lack of control at the club.
The reports are he has pulled the plug on the vast resources he was pumping into the club and with the western world only occasionally getting a glimpse of Chinese media any report coming out may just be worth its weight. In fact Shanghai’s other star, barring the title character and fellow former Blue Nicolas Anelka, is a Colombian called Giovanni Moreno. He was not included in their last squad amid reports his former club Racing Club of Argentina were not paid an instalment of his transfer fee.
The name Shanghai Shenhua means the ‘Flower of Shanghai’ and without deliberately trying to use a bad pun (which I am) it would appear the recent booming blossom predicted has wilted away and could leave Shanghai needing to dispose of their big names.
Not to mention the clubs managerial problems, Nicolas Anelka falling out publically with the fans and the languishing mid-table league position.
If the monumental wage’s are not paid to Drogba he will be entitled to cancel his contract at any time and despite him saying the move to China was not about money but instead about raising the popularity of the game in the Far East I for one can’t see him playing for a mid-table Chinese side for free, can you?
Drogba will have interest from around the world for his signature if he does become a free agent, and when the transfer window closes he will be eligible to register with another team, therefore eliminating FIFA’s 3 club rule from the list of stumbling blocks. He would likely receive special dispensation anyway in the light of any financial misgivings.
He may want to go to Marseille or try Spain or Italy; maybe pick up his Chinese project in the States or even Qatar. But if he did want to come back to the Premier League there is only one team he would even dream of playing for, so he might just hang around Cobham for a little while longer.
Didier Drogba back to Chelsea, what do you think?
images: © Crystian Cruz, © Audrey Pilato, © Ben Sutherland
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