Oscar to China: Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher says Chelsea star leaving for for Chinese Super League is ’embarrassing’

JAMIE CARRAGHER has slammed Chelsea midfielder Oscar for chasing money at the age of 25.

The Chinese Super League continues to makes moves for top talent and challenge the European heavyweights by flashing mega wages at players – Oscar will move to Shanghai SIPG in an eye-watering £52million move in January.

Former Liverpool defender has hit out at the Brazilian, describing his decision to head to China as ‘”embarrassing” with the lure of playing in the Premier League, and for the biggest trophies football can offer, not being enough for the midfielder.

Oscar will be paid £400,000-a-week in a staggering deal that will fetch a transfer fee of £52m.

Last season Arsene Wenger mentioned his concerns that the Chinese Super League could eventually rival Europe and push transfer fees even further through the roof.

Wenger knows all to well himself, the leverage players can now use to demand higher wages in Europe with Alexis Sanchez‘s agents using a £400,000 a week offer from China as bait to get the Chilean a better deal from the Gunners.

Oscar’s decision to take the money and run in the prime of his career is a baffling one, just last summer Southampton‘s Graziano Pelle left for Chinese side Shandong Luneng for £12m.

At 30 perhaps the Italian thought he would not get a better chance of earning the money that was being offered, but Pelle was showing signs of still having a good couple of years of Premier League football still left in him.

Carragher said of Oscars transfer in his column: “It is a sad day for football when a player about to enter his prime moves for financial reasons and nothing else.’

“The money is astronomical, but it’s not as if he is on a pittance at Chelsea.

“This is not a move to further his career. Hew will talk about the league growing in China, the chance to work with Andre Villas-Boas and the excitement about a new adventure-but we all know those words will be nonsense.

“He had gone for the size of the contract. Nothing else. Players used to look for a pay day in their mid-thirties when their career was coming to and end. We all understood that.

“With the riches now on offer in China, I could understand a player’s head getting turned when he reaches 30 – but 25?

“It’s embarrassing that a player would give up his career and the chance to compete for the biggest prizes in the game just for money.”