Chinese club confident of signing Anelka

SOCCER NEWS: SHANGHAI SHENHUA are confident of completing a move for Chelsea striker Nicolas Anelka when the transfer window…

SOCCER NEWS:SHANGHAI SHENHUA are confident of completing a move for Chelsea striker Nicolas Anelka when the transfer window reopens.

The Chinese Super League club have offered former France forward Anelka a three-year contract, which includes a salary reportedly in excess of €7 million.

West Ham are also said to be interested in the 32-year-old, but Shanghai spokesman Ma Yue believes agreement with Anelka’s representatives is close.

He told Shanghai Daily: "It will be a three-year contract and will involve both football and commercial co-operation."

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Club chairman Zhu Jun added: “We started to talk about every detail from the first minute of the negotiations.

“The whole contract is made up of details. It’s comprehensive and complicated, involving the player’s image and the commercial co-operation.”

Anelka will be a free agent next summer and therefore able to sign a pre-contract agreement with a rival club in January.

He confirmed at the weekend he already knew his next destination, suggesting a move to China was imminent.

As well as the riches on offer in the far east, there is the prospect of playing under former Fulham boss and fellow Frenchman Jean Tigana, who is said to be close to being confirmed as Shanghai Shenhua’s new manager.

West Ham are also reportedly considering making a loan move, which would reunite Anelka with Sam Allardyce, who Anelka played under at Bolton.

Whatever the outcome, Anelka is set to spend the remainder of 2011 kicking his heels.

He and Chelsea team-mate Alex were last week banished from Andre Villas-Boas’ first-team squad after handing in transfer requests.

Elsewhere, Arsenal will unveil statues of Herbert Chapman, Tony Adams and Thierry Henry tomorrow to mark the club’s 125th anniversary this weekend, it was reported yesterday.

The Daily Telegraphsays Chapman, who led the club to their first league titles in 1931 and 1933, Adams, who captained Arsenal to five league titles across three decades, and Henry, the club's record goalscorer with 226, will be the men honoured.

Uefa will hear Wayne Rooney’s appeal against a three-match ban this morning, but even if he is successful the England striker can still expect to be suspended for the first two games of Euro 2012.

Rooney, who was given the ban after his dismissal for violent conduct against Montenegro, will travel to Uefa’s headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, for the hearing after playing in Manchester United’s Champions League match in Basle last night.

As things stand, Rooney would miss all of England’s Group D games against France, Sweden and Ukraine.