Bayern Munich and Croatian international midfielder Danijel Pranjić has been made a blockbuster offer to play for an unnamed Chinese Super League club, according to Croatian media reports.
The 30-year-old former Dinamo Zagreb player told Sportske Novosti: “I got an offer from China that was truly impossible to refuse. The offer is startling in a financial sense. It is unbelievable. The money is really great.”
“Financially, it’s an incredible offer. I’ve not yet signed, but really I’ve already decided.
“After the Champions League final, the club’s owner will pick me up on a private plane to fly to China to sign the contract.”
Pranjić hasn’t featured regularly at Bayern this season, and his contract is up at the end of the season having joined in 2009 from Dutch side Heerenveen. The question is of course which Chinese Super League team is the Croatian set to join, assuming he is not using the media to negotiate a better deal elsewhere?
Shanghai media reported this week that Shenhua were due to bring in a high-class midfielder just after the European Cup Final between Chelsea and Bayern Munich on May 19 – no name was mentioned, but the facts as they stand suggest Pranjic could be heading to Hongkou.
Chinese Super League flop Mattieu Manset is due to return to Reading in the summer, and it’s widely known to all those connected to Shenhua, and with a pair of functioning eyes, that Shenhua need to shore up its defensive midfield. Talk to Drogba joining still persists however and he may take Manset’s foreign slot. Bozic would then might have to make way for Pranjic.
Elsewhere in the Chinese media, Guizhuo Renhe have been linked with Pranjić, and the only other clubs with the money to buy him would be Dalian Aerbin and Guangzhou R&F.
This season has seen an unprecedented number of big name transfer rumours flying around Chinese Super League clubs – with only two, Nicolas Anelka to Shenhua, and Lucas Barrios to Guangzhou Evergrande, turning out to be true.
It appears fans will have to wait until after the champion$ league final to find out if Pranjić becomes the next big name to play in China.
