Marouane Fellaini was offered to Chinese heavyweights Tianjin Quanjian, their manager Fabio Cannavaro has claimed.

The Manchester United midfielder recently signed a new one-year extension, which now runs until 2018, but has started just three Premier League games since October.

Fellaini was jeered by United supporters in December after a mistake away at Everton, before Jose Mourinho backed the 29-year-old to the hilt.

Marouane Fellaini (centre) with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Wayne Rooney after the EFL Cup final

Yet Cannavaro - the former central defender who took over last June - revealed he turned down the opportunity to land the Belgium international.

'He was offered to me, but I told his agent that I was looking for a different profile,' the Italian said.

Cannavaro feels the wealth of money in the Chinese Super League will start attracting some of the world's biggest names.

Tianjin Quanjian boss Fabio Cannavaro has claimed he was given the chance to sign Fellaini

The 2006 World Cup winner rather optimistically suggested that Tianjin Quanjian have an outside chance of signing Everton's Romelu Lukaku in the future.

'The problem is Everton - they do not just let him go,' he added. The fact that Lukaku is younger, is not the problem.

'Lukaku could be perfect to China. Look at Oscar. He is 25 and swapped Chelsea for Shanghai SIPG. Why? Because football is football in the world. Every player wants to play at a club that wins.'