In the likely event that you were unaware, today marks the end of a deeply, deeply underwhelming era.
Carlos Tevez - man who has turned being malcontent at football clubs into a profitable industry - has ended his association with Shanghai Shenhua a year before his contract was due to expire. The club announced today that they had ended the deal prematurely, and Tevez has returned to Argentina for a third spell with Boca Juniors. He previously played for the club between 2001-04 and 2015-16.
It was a largely disastrous spell for Tevez, the most notable aspect of it all being the money he earned in the process.
Among the monied moves to the Chinese Super League in 2016, none were as lucrative as Tevez' absurd contract, which was published for the world to see by Football Leaks. It was worth £634,000-a-week, and had a few bonus chucked in to the tune of £4 million.
These included: £788,000 if he played in 70% of Shanghai’s matches per season; £1.56 million if Shanghai won the Asian Champion League; £788,000 if the club won the Chinese Super League; £390,000 if the club won the cup and another £390,000 if he ended as top scorer.
Sadly for Tevez, he had to be content with his basic wage, which worked out at £1.04 per second.
He made just 20 appearances for the club, scoring a sum total of four goals, meaning he missed out on the appearance and goalscoring bonuses. Guangzhou's title meant that he has missed out on that bonus, but he did earn the £390,000 bonus as the club won the Chinese FA Cup.
But while he has earned many millions in the Far East, Tevez earned very few friends. Fans were deeply angered at what they (correctly) perceived as Tevez not being particularly arsed about the whole enterprise. In April of this year, he was forced to defend himself from the vitriol of angry fans when he elected to skip a Shanghai game to take his family to Disneyland.
In fairness, he was injured, but it wasn't a good look. As his club toiled against Changchun Yatai, Tevez was snapped enjoying a day out wth his family.
Tevez publicly retorted that "that was my day off. I'm a normal person and it is normal to have a good time with my family during my time off". In the same interview, he admitted that he "hasn't completely gotten used to" the Chinese Super League yet and needs to "adapt with the team and the CSL environment".
He did add at the end of the interview, however, that "me and my family all like Shanghai and I'm slowly getting used to the city and the atmosphere. I will stay here".
A few months on, and he's off. Albeit with a wallet with a bulge so large that George Costanza would be embarrassed.
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