Zenit St Petersburg’s Brazilian forward Hulk is close to joining Chinese Super League club Shanghai SIPG in a deal worth around £48million.
The deal will break the Asian transfer record of £38m that Jiangsu Suning paid Shakhtar Donetsk for Brazilian midfielder Alex Teixeira in February.
The fee for the Shakhtar Donetsk player was a part of over £199.5m spent in the league’s February transfer window.
‘Zenit have reached a preliminary agreement with Shanghai SIPG concerning the transfer of Hulk, and on Wednesday the player will undergo a medical,’ Zenit’s press officer, Dmitri Zimmerman, told the Russian daily Sport Express.
‘Zenit will receive around €56m (£46.3m), while a further €2m (£1.7m) could be added to the total price.’
Hulk, the 29-year-old who has won 46 caps for Brazil and scored 11 international goals, joined Zenit from Porto in 2012.
He netted 56 goals for Zenit in 97 Russian Premier League matches and was the league’s top scorer in the 2014-15 season with 15 goals.
Zenit finished third last season and missed out on qualification for the Champions League. They will play in next season’s Europa League.
Shanghai SIPG are coached by the former England manager Sven Goran Eriksson.
The Chinese Football Association announced plans in March to become a “world football superpower” by 2050.
The national team is currently 81st in the Fifa world rankings and have only qualified for the World Cup once, in 2002.
Eriksson, who coached at Guangzhou R&F before joining Shanghai in 2013, believes the league’s growth will attract more big name players.
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