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The Chinese Super League received a massive influx of sponsorship cash over the last few months, leading to the league spending hundreds of millions of euros on players plying their trade across Europe. Serie A was not immune from those teams' temptations -- and even SSC Napoli received some massive offers, though unlike some clubs they elected to keep their player instead of taking the outlay of cash.
In Napoli's case, the offers were all for one man, club captain and budding team legend Marek Hamsik. The exact value of the offers in unknown, but what is known is this: Napoli and Hamsik turned down every single one. Here's his agent, Juraj Venglos, on the offers.
I can confirm we received massive offers from China for Marek, but we didn’t even take them into consideration.
Hamsik is very famous in the Chinese market and it’s only normal their clubs offer a great deal to convince him into a transfer.
However, Hamsik is concentrated on Napoli and wants to win the scudetto with their jersey.
-Translated quote source: Football Italia
It sounds like Napoli got the offers, took them to Marek as a courtesy and to make sure everyone was still on the same page, and then they all had a good laugh about it. Exactly as such offers should have been treated, really.
It's not surprising that Chinese teams would want Hamsik. He's in his prime and is one of the top players at his position and role in Europe, and would be at least as good of a draw as many of the other players that Super League teams brought in. As Venglos noted, he's well-known in China and the rest of Asia -- they're probably as fascinated by his spiky hair and fiery demeanor as the rest of us are -- and his talent would instantly make him one of the absolute elite players in the league.
But all that acclaim and all the money that would come with it isn't enough for Marek Hamsik. When it comes to his heartfelt love for the city of Naples, the people of Naples, and the club he captains, there's probably very little that could or would convince him to leave. These offers certainly weren't enough to get the job done, and now it's time to just focus on the task at hand -- and that task is Marek Hamsik leading Napoli in a chase for the scudetto.