Ex-Southampton Star Admits China Move Solely Down to Extortionate Wages on Offer

?Graziano Pelle has admitted that he wouldn’t have moved to the Chinese Super League if it wasn’t for the extortionate wages on offer.

The Italian striker headed to the Far East after impressing for his national side at Euro 2016, and many critics and fans called Pelle out for chasing the dosh after he completed a £13m move from Southampton.

In an interview with Italian TV show Emigratis (via ?Football Italia), however, Pelle did reveal that he did, in fact, leave the Premier League for China with the sole aim of making as much money as possible and that he would not have considered moving halfway across the globe if he hadn’t been offered an eye-watering salary.

He said: “Obviously I would never have come here if it wasn’t for all that money.”

Pelle notched five goals in his first 15 appearances for new club Shandong Luneng following his switch, but is yet to get off the mark this term despite playing the full 90 minutes in each of his side’s four games so far.

The 31-year-old registered two goals for Italy during their run to the quarter-finals of Euro 2016 in France, where they eventually lost out to Germany 7-6 in a penalty shootout after the two nations played out a 1-1 draw over 120 minutes.

Pelle was seen trying to psych-out Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer in the build up to his spot kick, and the forward should have been paying more attention to himself as he rolled the resultant attempt wide of Neuer’s right hand post.

It proved to be a costly miss as Italy would have been 3-1 up ahead of the last three penalties between the sides, but Pelle remarked that he did not actually try to put Neuer off when quizzed on the terrible effort from 12 yards.

He added: “I wasn’t trying to mock Manuel Neuer. I know he moves around a lot, so I did that gesture to imply I was going to chip him, hoping he’d remain in the centre, when in fact I already had it in my mind to fire to his right. Then I saw he had thrown himself down anyway, I sent it too wide.”

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