Oscar arrived in China this week after completing a move to Shanghai SIPG for £60m

China’s government has signalled it will impose a curb on the wild fees and huge salaries being spent by the country’s clubs on foreign players.

Shanghai SIPG’s signing of Oscar from Chelsea for an Asian record £60 million, and the reported £32 million annual salary — £614,000 a week — being paid to Carlos Tevez by Shanghai Shenhua, has set alarm bells ringing in the Chinese government.

A government spokesman issued a statement today saying it would “regulate and restrain high-priced signings, and impose reasonable restrictions on players’ high incomes”.

China’s football-mad president Xi Jinping prompted a surge of investment into Chinese teams, and investment by state-linked Chinese companies in football around the world, by stating his aims that the country will host and one