Bat Country: China interested in paying Tottenham midfielder absurd wages

Dele Alli is on a tremendous run of form as of late for Tottenham Hotspur. The 20-year-old midfielder’s brace dispatched Chelsea and prevented our west London rivals from taking the all-time club winning streak record for themselves. Thanks to our wonderful midfielder, Spurs are now in third place and in the thick of things not only for the Top 4, but for the Premier League title. A run of form as good as Dele’s lately will command attention, especially with Mauricio Pochettino calling Dele a “£50m player.”

While it’s expected to hear that the European giants will be monitoring Tottenham’s midfield talisman, what we didn’t expect is the source of today’s bat country rumor.

Peter O’Rourke over at ESPNFC.com is reporting that multiple clubs in the Chinese Super League are interested in Dele, and not just interested, but apparently willing to splash a stupid amount of money.

Sources have told ESPN FC that interested clubs in China have enlisted the help of top European brokers to try and do a deal for Alli, with his suitors ready to pay the 20-year-old up to $1 million (£809,323) a week net.

Um....yeah, that’s a lot of cheddar. Before you all look for the first paper bag to start hyperventilating into, let’s look at the rumor.

First, remember when Carlos Tevez was reportedly going to get like £700k/week or thereabouts? Yeah, that ended up being a lot less, somewhere around £225k/week. In all fairness, that is still an absurd amount of money to pay for a striker in his twilight years. I’m guessing that the wage reported is wrong, but who knows!?

O’Rourke, for what it’s worth, is a pretty reputable source, but even this is flimsy for him. He is going the route of unnamed sources and using buzzwords that we see all the time with bat country articles such as “tracking” or “targeted” which mean basically anything. It could be that China sent scouts to White Hart Lane to actually watch Dele play. At the same time, it could be that they saw him on TV scoring against Chelsea and going “Wow! Let’s get him!” and that’s about it.

We all know that China is trying their hardest to build up the profile of the Chinese Super League. There are some super-rich clubs that apparently have an endless amount of money to spend, given that we just watched Oscar head east for a stupid transfer fee of around £52m. Also, remember Paulinho? Even he got a raise to go to China and Spurs somehow managed to squeeze £10m for what we figured was a broken player, though I’m wondering if Levy actually got the shaft on that one for all the money being spent.

Dele is currently on a reported £50k/week wage, having just been bumped up in September. We all have to assume that the European giants are going to start putting in inquiries at some point, which will require Spurs to give him another bump in pay probably in the Summer or immediately after, even though he’s only six months into a five year deal. Being optimistic, Dele appears to be quite happy. He’s one of the best players on a club that is going through exciting changes. All signs show that he loves his teammates, especially his best bro for life, Eric Dier. He also has said that domestic and European glory are on his achievement list, neither of which can be achieved playing in China. I’m sure a moment will come where Dele actually looks at that number and thinks about it, but at his age? He’s going to get paid regardless of where he ends up.

I know we’re all worried about the time coming when a Real or Bayern or PSG come knocking, but this rumor is not that. It’s as bat country as it gets.