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The controversy over how much Chinese soccer clubs owe to players and other clubs has a Whitecaps connection, if reports are to be believed.

A report this week in Britain says a vast majority of clubs in the Chinese Super League had debts they needed to clear — accrued through either missed wages to players or getting behind on transfer payments — and are in trouble with the country’s top soccer body as a result.

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Thirteen clubs in the league have been warned by the Chinese Football Association to sort out their debts by Aug. 15 or face expulsion from the league, says The Daily Mirror.

But according to the South China Morning Post, some of the Chinese clubs in question said the issue was overblown and the debts were being cleared up.

A spokesman for Shenua, a club that’s signed Carlos Tevez on a massive contract and one of the baker’s dozen apparently under threat, told the Post, “at this moment, we can’t guarantee that we’ve already paid off the compensation fees because a player, especially a foreign player, might have played for many clubs including some minor clubs before joining Shenhua. We might have forgotten or neglected one or two of them inadvertently.”