Who's hot, who's not in China Sports (Week 25)

It's true, Drogba joined Anelka in Shanghai

Shanghai Shenhua dropped another bombshell on the Chinese Football Association by announcing the signing of former Chelsea striker Didier Drogba on Wednesday afternoon.

The 34-year-old, who thrust the Blues to victory in this year's Championship League Final with a last-minute game-tying header and a decisive penalty in the penalty shootout, will join his old friend as well as Chelsea teammate Nicolas Anelka to forge the most powerful forward line, at least in popularity, ever for Shenhua.

So to what end did Drogba accept the offer from the Chinese club who has been stumbling in the league with a slew of drama, on and off the pitch, instead of picking a wealthier Saudi Arabia club who could pay him 210,000 Euros per game?

"I have studied all the offers I had during the past few weeks, and I have the feeling that going to Shanghai is the right direction for me now," Drogba said on his website just moments before the signing. "I am looking forward to that challenge, to discover a new culture, and I am very enthusiastic about the development of the Chinese football league."

Really? He thinks he would quickly fit into a new culture in a completely strange country that just ended a three-year national crackdown on soccer corruption, after hearing about the most famous, or infamous, achievement by Anelka, which was a successful conspiracy with his Shenhua buddies to oust its former coach and take over the team that has been throwing clunkers every week?

We should thank Zhu Jun, a major investor in the struggling Shenhua, for his superb negotiation efforts in the past months to land two of the world's best players for China, whose national team was ranked 73rd by FIFA last week. But the gratitude is a temporary one. If the Cote d'Ivoire striker fails and proves to be powerless to lift the 12th-ranked Shenhua out of the big hole – they are now 3-5-5 midway through the season – like Anelka did, then this could turn into the biggest joke in the history of soccer.

Unfortunately, many people, including some pros, see no positive sides to this blockbuster deal.

Li Weifeng, former Chinese men's national team captain and now a Tianjin Teda player, commented on Weibo on Wednesday, “Yesterday it was Anelka, today it is Drogba. What's tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow? The polarization is now serious in CFA. And I don't know whether it is a good situation or not. Now the fans are happy with top-tier coaches and players in the league. But after they leave, will there be other people with higher caliber to come to CFA?”

For Drogba, with the move, his stellar career faces a formidable challenge. He used to lead a perennial contender fighting for the ultimate glory in Europe. Now his new boss needs him to save a team that is in danger of irrelevance. If you count factors like culture disparity, this is getting more serious for him in the next two-and-a-half years. At the end of the day, will his legacy in this sport be tainted by a reckless decision?

Only time will tell.