Chelsea confirms sale of Oscar to Shanghai SIPG for reported £60M

Oscar's four-and-a-half years at Chelsea are over after the club confirmed Friday that the midfielder's sale to Chinese Super League outfit Shanghai SIPG has been agreed.

The 25-year-old Brazilian moves for a fee worth in the region of £52 million, according to the Guardian, or £60 million, as reported by BBC Sport. His wage will be an estimated £400,000 a week.

Some of the windfall received by Premier League leader Chelsea is expected to be reinvested in the transfer market, especially if manager Antonio Conte has his way, with the defence and midfield identified as areas to strengthen. The fee also brings in a considerable profit from the £20 million the Blues paid for Oscar to switch from Internacional in 2012.

Oscar's teammates in the Xuhui district will include compatriots Hulk and Elkeson, with ex-Sunderland forward Asamoah Gyan currently on a loan term away from the club with Al-Ahli Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

The squad is overseen by Andre Villas-Boas, a former manager of Chelsea who was relinquished of his duties before Oscar joined the club.

There could be a big name arriving in the Kangqiao suburb of the city too, with Shanghai Shenhua apparently offering a weekly salary of £615,000 (€732,000) to Carlos Tevez, with a deal expected to be struck by the start of the new Chinese season in February. That star-studded squad includes the lavishly paid trio of Demba Ba, Fredy Guarin, and Obafemi Martins.

While these deals provide further examples of Chinese football flexing its financial muscle at the behest of the country's president Xi Jinping, it has also drawn criticism over players having their heads turned by avarice rather than an opportunity to play in the world's best leagues - something that the Chinese Super League isn't, for now.

Considering Oscar's age, he's received particularly heavy amounts of condemnation from the media since rumours of the transfer broke.