From winning the Champions League with Chelsea, Drogba upped sticks to play for Shanghai Shenhua.
Why? Has he gone just for the money? In part, yes, and not from a selfish motivation too.
The millions he will earn – at a reported £200,000 per week – will be huge for his projects at home in the Ivory Coast. Building a hospital is one of several projects he is backing.
But his time in China will give him a chance to leave a lasting legacy, and help and inspire a generation in the Far East.
It is not just promoting the Chinese Super League which is the aim, a standard below the MLS over in America.
Two years ago Drogba would likely have landed in America if the circumstances were the same, but China’s economic growth has seen investment in their league which the MLS currently can’t compete with when it comes to paying wages.
In football terms, China is a mystery. The country has a population of 1.3 billion, one sixth of the world’s, yet the world is still waiting for the first Chinese footballing superstar.
A decade ago Manchester United took a punt on youngster Dong Fanghzhou, but his career has taken such a downwards spiral that he was last seen playing in the Armenian national league.
So Drogba’s inspiration has to be helping to grow the game in China. He can’t be expected to do it alone, but is easily the most high-profile star globally to play for a domestic side, and will become an icon in the country.
When you compare China’s population with Holland’s for example, just 16 million, and look at the number of top class footballers the Dutch have produced over the years, it is an obvious question to ask just why the Chinese are so lacking, and failed to even qualify for the last World Cup.
The answer goes down to the infrastructure, expertise, and commitment to the game at grassroots level. If the arrival of Didier Drogba and many others, including Nicolas Anelka, can get the Chinese public interested in the game, and the money generated trickles down towards the bottom – and not just player wages, then the country might just be onto something.
Yet it may take a while. The same predictions were made when David Beckham went to America, and the US national team is yet to reap any potential rewards, yet it is difficult to argue the domestic game is not in a better place than prior to his arrival.
If any country has the untapped potential to make an impact on the world game, it is China, and Drogba’s high-profile arrival is one piece of a jigsaw puzzle in helping it happen.
image: © Crystian Cruz
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