Recent Chinese Players in English Football
History of Chinese Footballers Playing in the English Leagues
Aug 27, 2009
Following Crystal Palace's moves for Chinese duo Fan Zhiyi and Sun Jihai in 1998, Premier League side Everton signed a couple of Chinese players in 2002.
Li Tie at Everton
Li Tie was born in the northern Chinese city of Shenyang in 1977 and started his professional career playing for Chinese side Liaoning. In 2002 Liaoning reached an agreement for Everton to take the defensive midfielder on loan to Goodison Park.
Contrary to pessimistic expectations in England, Li Tie's first Premier League season was reasonably successful. He was a regular member of David Moyes's side and made 31 appearances in the 2002-03 season.
Everton subsequently signed Li Tie on a permanent contract for a fee believed to be around £1m. However, the midfielder only managed a few games in the 2003-04 season before he broke his leg playing for China in February 2004.
Coupled with a string of other injuries picked up prior to the broken leg, Li Tie was sidelined for 12 months. When Li finally made his return for Everton in the reserves game against Bolton, he suffered another injury that resulted in him never playing for Everton first team again.
Li Tie was finally released by Everton in 2006 and signed for Sheffield United, one of the newly promoted teams in the 2006-07 Premier League season. However, he was never to make a league appearance for the Blades, and was released on a free transfer at the end of the 2007-08 season.
Li Weifeng at Everton
If Li Tie did not have a good time in English football, central defender Li Weifeng, who joined Everton in the same deal in 2002, fared even worse.
Highly rated in China and capped over 100 times by the national team, Li Weifeng joined Everton on loan from Chinese side Shenzhen Ping'an in 2002. His one season at England was marked by his abject failure to break into the Everton first team.
Everton eventually decided against offering him a permanent contract, and Li Weifeng went back to China in 2003 having made only senior appearance for the Premier League side.
Zheng Zhi at Charlton
Central Midfielder Zheng Zhi joined Charlton Athletic on loan in December 2006 from Chinese side Shandong Luneng.
In a season when Charlton was fighting for survival in the Premier League, the Chinese player scored 1 goal in 12 appearances for the club.
His performance was impressive enough to award him a permanent contract at the end of that season despite Charlton's eventual relegation to the Championship. Zheng Zhi went on to play two seasons for Charlton, scoring another 8 goals in 51 appearances in the Championship.
Following the Addicks' relegation to League 1 at the end of the 2008-09 season, Zheng Zhi was released by the English side in a free transfer.
Dong Fangzhuo at Manchester United
If Zheng Zhi and Sun Jihai were the most successful Chinese players to have played in England, striker Dong Fangzhuo was probably right at the other end of the scale.
Dong was 19 years of age when he signed for Manchester United in January 2004 from Chinese club Dalian Shide for a fee of £0.5m, rising to £3.5m depending on appearances.
However, his much-hyped talent was never on show at Old Trafford, as the player was initially marred by work permit complications and loaned out to Manchester United's Belgian feeder club Royal Antwerp.
Dong Fangzhuo did have tremendous success in Belgium as he managed 33 goals in 61 games during his two seasons there.
In spite of his success in Belgium Dong never looked like he was going to make the breakthrough into the Manchester United first team, appearing only in pre-season friendlies, scoring once in a non-competitive game against South African outfit Kaiser Chiefs.
Dong only managed three senior appearances for Manchester United, the first one being a Premier League final day 0-0 draw against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, when United, already crowned champions of the 2006-07 season, fielded a weakened side.
Dong's second Manchester United senior appearance came in December 2007 when he came on as a substitute for Wayne Rooney in United's final Champions League group stage match against AS Roma. His final appearance was the Carling Cup 2-0 defeat at the hands of Coventry City in the 2007-08 season.
In August 2008 Dong Fangzhuo's contract was terminated by mutual consent. The striker returned to China to play for Dalian Haichang, thereby putting an end to his spectacularly disappointing spell in England.
