Protest in Guangzhou: Why would you burn garbage?
Obama in China: Long gone, and still headlinin'
Cinematheque: Mulan is finally Chinese again! (and other film news)
Barbie Spa: For the cosmopolitan plastic beauty in you
Interview: Coco Zhao, from jazz to M. Butterfly
Chinese international captain Du Wei is to return to his old club Shanghai Shenhua shorty, after failing to win a long term deal at Glasgow Celtic.
The defender joined the Irish Scottish club on a four-month loan last September, with a view to making the deal permanent in January. Celtic wanted to extend Du Wei's loan to the end of the season -- but Shenhua are having none of it and have told Celtic they have had enough time to decide weather they want to sign him up permanently or not.
But money, it seems, is the stumbling block for Celtic and not the 23-year-old’s disastrous debut last week which saw him play a cameo role in one of the club’s worst ever results. A substantial proportion of the Scottish football community almost died with laughter when the Glasgow giants were knocked out by Clyde FC -- a team which barely attracts 1,000 fans to its games every week, compared with Celtic's 60,000.
Du Wei was the subject of much unkind ridicule in Scotland following this nightmare debut, but Celtic manager Gordon Strachan told Glasgow’s Evening Times he wanted to keep Du Wei and give him another chance. However the club was unwilling to stump up the £700,000 Shenhua were demanding to take Du Wei of its books permanently instead of extending his loan.
A Celtic spokesperson said: "Clearly, we're disappointed that an agreement couldn't be reached to keep Du Wei at Celtic. Everyone at the club sincerely wishes him all the very best for the future."
Shanghaiist thinks Strachan left it too late to blood Du Wei -- the deadline for a decision on whether the club wanted to retain him was looming fast so he had no option but to throw him against a lower-league team, away from home, in the Scottish Cup. Such matches are notorious banana skins and the semi-frozen pitch, unfamiliar surroundings and hard-as-nails first division Scottish players eager to have a go at one of Scotland’s two huge teams would have given Du Wei a more challenging debut than it perhaps looked on paper.
Shenhua will see the whole episode as a case of nothing ventured, nothing gained, and with one of their best players returning, the 2003 Chinese Super League (CSL) champions must surely be among the favourites to win this year’s championship when it kicks off in March. But, expect Du Wei to have another crack with a mid-tier European club within the next two seasons at the most.
Also in Shanghaiist:
Nightmare for Du Wei
China to sell Sun to Wigan?
End Game: Shanghai Shenhua finish with a draw
Shanghai soccer star on the verge of Scottish League Debut
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
post to facebook
Come on - 'bloodied too late' - it was pretty clear even from reports from the Celtic training camp that he wasn't up to the style of the Game north of the border - the performance against Clyde was embarrassing. Strachan can now extricate himself from the disastorous marketing in China strategy of the Celtic board and get back to trying to keep those 60,000 Celtic Park fans happy - a pretty thankless task at the best of times.
Disagree. I don't recall reading any stories about Du Wei's lack of suitability for the Scottish game before his debut. Sure, all accounts suggest that his debut was utterly lamentable, but I wouldn't read anything into one performance - Strachan didn't, otherwise he wouldn't have tried to extend the loan. If he thought Du Wei couldn't adapt to the rigors of the Scottish game then he would have sent him home. Instead, he tried to extend the loan, and with Shenhua's season to start in less then two months, they quite rightly refused an extenstion. Conclusion? He should have at least given Du Wei a few outings from the subs bench earlier in the season rather than wait till the last minute.