Crystal Palace shelled out a club-record £30m to land Liverpool striker Christian Benteke in the summer to come and be the club’s reliable goalscorer.
Half a season into his Palace tenure, Benteke’s been a relative success, scoring eight goals in 18 Premier League appearances so far this season but it hasn’t helped Crystal Palace avoid being dragged into a relegation scrap.
Losing the Belgian would deal a major dent to the club’s survival chances, but with the money being bandied about in China, it’s hard not to have a player’s head turn when they’re subjected to multi-million-pound contract offers.
Benteke is one of five Belgian players to receive a lucrative offer from the Chinese Super League according to Belgian source DH. Other players include Romelu Lukaku, Mousa Dembele, Marouane Fellaini and Dries Mertens.
Axel Witsel, another Belgian, rejected a deal with Juventus in order to make a colossal move to China where he immediately becomes one of the world’s highest-paid players.
Everton’s Lukaku is the only one of the five mentioned players to have ruled out a move to China, while the report states that “the temptation is there” for the other four to make the move and take the money.
It would take a huge fee to even bring Palace around to the idea of selling Benteke, but that hasn’t stopped Chinese clubs bringing in big-ticket players in recent months.
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