The footballing megastar Gareth Bale has won trophies galore in his coruscating career, not to mention the respect of his rugby-loving home nation. Now the Cardiff-born player, Wales’s most famous export since Catherine Zeta-Jones, has a new challenge: to sell the beautiful game to China at a time when it has become something of a political football.

Reports suggest the ex-Spurs striker is set to leave Real Madrid to join Chinese club Jiangsu Suning on a three-year deal that will see him earn £1m a week – double that of the world’s current highest-paid player, Argentina’s Ezequiel Lavezzi, who plays for Hebei China Fortune.

Gareth Bale aims to have Beckham-like impact with move to Jiangsu Suning Read more

His departure from the Spanish club, which he joined from Spurs for £85m in 2013, a world record deal at the time, was not unexpected. Bale, 30, had fallen out of favour with the fans and the boss, Zinedine Zidane.

But his move to a relatively obscure Chinese side that finished fifth in the Chinese Super League (CSL) last season has stunned the football world.

“If true, this is a galactico moving from one of the world’s biggest clubs in one of the best leagues on one of the most eye-watering salaries to a so-so team in the Chinese Super League,” said Jonathan Sullivan, director of China Programs at Nottingham University’s Asia Research Institute. “From the perspective of an ‘upstart’ league that finds it hard to be taken seriously, at least in the west, getting a player of Bale’s stature, irrespective of the way things have turned out for him at Real, is huge.”

Sullivan said the deal, if confirmed, would eclipse the “crazy money” era ushered in at the start of the decade when Chinese clubs were throwing cash at the likes of Chelsea’s Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka. That era was placed on a collision course with the Chinese state five years ago when President Xi Jinping announced his desire for China to become one of the world’s leading football nations.

The country invested massively in grassroots football, which China hoped would address its growing obesity and public health problems, while providing a talent pipeline for the national teams. Although presented as a way of furthering Xi’s ambitions, the influx of foreign players, who more recently have included West Ham’s Marko Arnautović and Manchester United’s Marouane Fellaini, was seen to clash with the state’s aspirations.

“When the state saw these clubs investing crazy money on the pretext that it was ‘furthering the country’s football ambitions’, it reined them in,” Sullivan explained. “This is a country with huge problems with inequality and corruption, and having clubs do this crazy shit was not what the state wanted. It wasn’t helping public health or developing the national team and it looked really bad.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jiangsu Suning supporters at a game against Shanghai SIPG.

The imposition of hefty taxes and restrictions on the number of foreign players Chinese teams can buy led to predictions that the foreign influx would become a trickle. Now Bale’s move, which invites comparisons with David Beckham’s 2007 decision to join LA Galaxy, a coup for the US Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise, which saw players like Chelsea’s Frank Lampard cross the Atlantic, suggests more players could follow the Welshman east.

“MLS was more an afterlife, somewhere you went at the end of your active playing career,” said Ellis Cashmore, honorary professor of sociology at Aston University and author of Studying Football. “But China is different. They want to make their presence known on the world stage. So many players and coaches are going to have their heads turned by China. They will say ‘if it’s good enough for Bale it has to be good enough for anybody’, even though the technical standard might not be that high.”

Sullivan said that countries with “less well-founded football cultures”, needed stars to boost interest. He pointed out that Japan’s J-League had recruited Brazil’s Zico and Gary Lineker, while Pelé had once graced the MLS. “Bale would certainly inject more excitement into Chinese football than [Southampton’s] Graziano Pellè or [West Brom’s] Salomón Rondón [two players who have gone to China] which is pretty important right now, given that CSL has plateaued within China itself,” Sullivan said.

Nevertheless, Bale may be switching clubs at an opportune time: the popularity of Chinese sides within China now eclipses that of European clubs. A report by Brand Finance found that Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao FC is the country’s favourite football club brand, as chosen by 25% of Chinese fans, ahead of both Real and Barcelona. And almost 90% of Chinese fans are aware of the CSL but only 63% know about Germany’s Bundesliga and 58% Spain’s La Liga.

“In five years’ time we will be talking about the CSL in the same way we talk about the Bundesliga, Serie A and the Premier League,” Cashmore predicted.