The loneliness of the struggling striker is absolute. Jackson Martínez came to Atlético Madrid to follow in their tradition of great goalscorers and instead made everyone who watched him a little bit sad. He seemed never to understand what he was supposed to be doing. He would run into spaces his midfielders weren’t looking at; he would try to press the opposing team’s back line by himself and at other times drop too deep. Worst of all, he missed the bulk of his chances: a low cross glancing off the top of his foot and past the post, a deceptive shimmy past a defender ending in a weak shot into the goalkeeper’s gut. Jackson produced three goals in a little over 1,000 minutes, and a lot of pitiful expressions. As one anonymous ex-teammate gnomically put it, “he believed more in God than in himself.” The debacle wasn’t quite what Atleti had in mind when they paid $39 million this past summer to bring the Colombian over from Porto.

Unbeknownst to everyone involved, Jackson was apparently accumulating value as he jogged around Spain’s pitches in search of a purpose. Earlier this week, he was sold to Guangzhou Evergrande of the Chinese Super League for $47 million, in a move that’s absurd several times over. Basic economics dictate that a car shouldn’t belch smoke for six months and get flipped at a profit. But then, a smattering of Chinese clubs are operating beyond logic these days. Jiangsu Suning recently took Ramires off Chelsea’s hands for $29 million. Inter sent Fredy Guarín to Shanghai Shenhua for $14 million. Second division side Tianjin Quanjin tried unsuccessfully to nab Alexandre Pato from Corinthians for $22 million.

The reason behind these silly numbers isn’t silly by itself. China’s nouveau riche class of millionaires and billionaires are trying to elevate Chinese soccer, to over time render their league as prestigious as, say, the Portuguese Primeira or the Russian Football Premier League. And they’re not going to be able to do that—not quickly, anyway—solely by collecting Chinese talent. So they’re calling up European and South American clubs with oversized transfer offers and tempting players with best-in-the-world salaries. They’re testing that cynical business maxim about everyone having a price.

In doing this, China’s most profligate club owners, knowingly or otherwise, are following a path similar to the one MLS has traced over the past handful of years. (This makes a strange sort of sense considering both America and China are large countries with sports-obsessed plutarchs and only a moderate interest in soccer.) It’s becoming comical how, in every third interview a European star gives, they talk about how they look forward to eventually plying their trade in America. The words are always kind, as if joining MLS is an intriguing challenge, but the underlying sentiment is that MLS is the place to go when you want to play against inferior competition, get overpaid, and live in New York or Los Angeles. It’s a racket for aging brand names—and the odd mid-tier European player like Sebastian Giovinco—that is sold by commissioner Don Garber as a way to increase both national and global interest in the league. There’s not much evidence that this has actually been the case, but it at least sounds like a plan, even if it doesn’t function as such.

It remains to be seen if America and China’s leagues will gain international renown on the backs of Kaka and Jackson Martínez, but in the meantime, they’re being used by foreigners as a rich revenue vein. This goes double for China. MLS clubs usually wait until a player is out of contract before offering him money he can’t get elsewhere, but the likes of Guangzhou Evergrande and Jiangsu Suning are getting swindled twice on every transaction. The eye-bulging salaries are one thing—you need to find a number that your prospective employee will agree to—but the fees they’re paying to acquire players are embarrassing. Atleti would have happily sold Jackson at a small loss. Guarín is a fine creative midfielder, but no club outside China would have broken the bank trying to sign him. These deals smack of some impatient rich fellow splashing cash for the sake of it, negotiating not so much from a position of weakness but of blithe talent-lust.

This minor winter exodus has sparked a few concerns among fans in the western world that the Chinese are going to throw the South American and European transfer markets out of whack, or that clubs outside of the ultra-monied elite will have even more trouble hanging on to their players than they already do.

Before Guangzhou came for Jackson Martínez, there were rumors in the Spanish papers about a play for Gabi Fernández. The Chinese club would pay the midfielder’s release clause and more than triple his salary, reports said. Gabi was born in Madrid, raised in Atleti’s cantera, and has captained most of the team’s matches as they’ve grown into a Champions League club over the past few seasons. That Guangzhou made the offer in the first place demonstrated that they had no idea whom they were talking to, just that he was an older, decorated player at a big European side. Gabi turned them down.

Someday, the Chinese Super League could be quite good, but it’s not likely to happen anytime soon, while it’s still a relative soccer backwater and while its members spend blindly in a way that suggests inevitable self-destruction. In the end, most players will choose to be well-paid in Italy or Spain rather than obscenely wealthy in a country that is only just now developing its taste for the sport. Until their league’s infrastructure improves and talent attracts more talent, China will be little more than a hapless business associate for Europe. When Atleti and Inter and Wolfsburg and Benfica are jonesing for additional funds, they will look east.