Liu Yi, Secretary General of the Chinese Football Association, confirmed that the national team squad will be limited to "three or four" Brazilian-born players, while the former "samba" player Oscar expressed his desire to represent the largest country in the world by number Population.
And the Shanghai player will need to make a fundamental change in the policy of the International Federation for the game (FIFA), in order to be able to play with the Chinese team, as he participated with his country's national team in 48 games, including six games in the 2014 World Cup at home when he scored two goals.
And Oscar considered that this decision indicates a prominent shift in Chinese football, and he said, yesterday, to the official "CGTN", in response to a question about whether he is ready to play for the Chinese team in the event of changing laws: "I can think of It is yes,
"Especially because it is difficult to play for Brazil at the moment because of my presence here."
Oscar's move from Chelsea to Shanghai for 60 million euros in January 2017 is an Asian record.
Last year the Chinese team, aspiring to qualify for the World Cup 2022, summoned its squad, the Brazilian strikers of Guangzhou Evergrande, Elkison and Aloysio.
The media reported that at least three other Brazilian attackers have either been naturalized, or are about to acquire Chinese citizenship.
However, the federal official mocked the idea that an ambitious China would turn into a team of Brazilians in a quick solution to reach the World Cup.
Chinese President Xi Jinping wants his country to become a great football power, but the Red Team only participated in the World Championship once, and that was in 2002 in South Korea and Japan, when he left without any points or even scoring a goal.
"We had some concern when we handed over the passport to Alkison or anyone," Liu Yi told AFP in a rare interview with a senior Chinese soccer official.
He added: “But the good thing is that the Chinese fans very much love to have a few (naturalized) players in the squad, as long as they can make the Chinese team better and take us to the World Cup, and we hope to be in the 2022 World Cup .. I don't see any objection Frankly, we need to evolve. It is not a strategy or a long-term approach. ”
"We will not have two-thirds of the team from Brazil," said Liu Yi, who was speaking before Oscar's comments came out this week. We might have two, three, or four probably, but that's it. ”
The Chinese squad will be limited to "three or four naturalized persons only".