TIM Cahill has predicted that a $100 million transfer to the Chinese Super League is imminent as clubs step up their aggressive pursuit of the world’s top talent.

The Chinese record transfer fee has been smashed four times in the current transfer window, with the clubs making a collective statement of intent regarding the future of football in their nation.

But Australia’s greatest ever international goalscorer Cahill, who has played one season with Shanghai Shenhua, told Fox Sports’ Shootout program that the ambition within Chinese football knows no bounds.

“When I first went to China I knew the vision, I knew what was behind it and I knew what they wanted to do. To see where it’s come to now and where we’re at, it’s pretty crazy,” Cahill said.

“They’ve got the power and when they want something, they get it and when they don’t want something they get rid of it. It’s pretty much like a revolving door, you see a lot of players coming in and a lot of players going.

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“It’s crazy to see but this is only going to get worse. This is going to be massive, soon they’ll break the $100 million mark easily.”

But such a figure seemed far off in the distance little more than a month ago when the $21.7 million fee paid by Guangzhou Evergrande for former Tottenham midfielder Paulinho remained the record price met by a Chinese club.

But since the beginning of January that figure has been dwarfed by the moves to China of Gervinho ($27.9m), Ramires ($50.9m), Jackson Martinez ($65.4m) and Alex Teixeira ($77.8 million), with each move breaking the previous record.

Amazingly, all deals involved players either from Europe’s big leagues, or being targeted by them.

While money is evidently no object for the cashed up Chinese clubs, Cahill suggested it may have become too much of a priority for those stars who have been poached from some of Europe’s best clubs.

“The choices that players are making are not about football like it was in my day, they’re purely about personal gains and it depends what you want as an individual,” Cahill said.

“Is it going to help players? No. Is it going to be big for the country? Yes.”

“You’re turning down Liverpool, you’re leaving Chelsea,” he added, referring to Teixeira and Ramires.

“Players have got different ideas and you have to be able to live in China as well. I live in Shanghai, it’s a big city. Some of the other areas it’s a bit tough and we’ll see how long they last.”

But the former Millwall, Everton and New York Red Bulls man also said the ambition of the Chinese Super League was doing little to help China’s home grown talent.

“With this investment in the players, there’s a catch 22. Does it help the Chinese? To a certain extent, no,” he said.

“The most difficult area for the Chinese national team is attacking, they can’t score goals. Everything else, they’re technically gifted, they’re great, I’ve spent a year with these kids.

“But when you sign players like this (Alex Teixeira, Jackson Martinez etc) everything is up to us. If we don’t deliver, it doesn’t happen.”