SHANGHAI - Soccer may be among the most popular sports in China, but when it comes to tapping the country's multi-billion-dollar sports market, it hasn't been scoring well.

Years of match-fixing, gambling scandals, corruption scandals, and violence on and off the pitch have driven fans away, and for overseas companies that have tried to market products by sponsoring soccer clubs in China, the record has been checkered, said Mark Thomas, managing director of sports marketing company S2M Group.

"We tell our customers to take a very strong look at football and be very careful with it because there's a lot of dangers in actually investing in that brand and the negative connotation that it could potentially bring you," said Thomas.

What soccer really needs is a Yao Ming, the former NBA superstar who transformed Chinese basketball.

Short of local talent, Shanghai Shenhua is attempting to buy superstars. Late last year they turned heads globally by signing Nicolas Anelka, the 32-year-old French striker from English Premier League side Chelsea, reportedly on wages of $300,000 a week.

They also employed former Girondins Bordeaux coach Jean Tigana and have been courting Anelka's old Chelsea teammate Didier Drogba to help improve on last season's 11th place finish in the 16-team Chinese Super League.

Dong Hua, spokesman for the Chinese Football Association, said the CFA has no say over clubs hiring expensive foreign players but they were supportive of the move.

"We believe bringing in high-level famous soccer players, especially those from European leagues, will definitely help improve the popularity of the Chinese Super League and the level of Chinese football," Dong told Reuters by phone.

No silver bullet

But critics say foreign players, who may come and go, can't match the influence of local stars like Yao Ming, or French Open champion Li Na in tennis.

Also, if Shenhua are hoping Anelka will be the silver bullet to clean up Chinese soccer then their recent sponsorship deal with online gaming firm The9 Limited isn't the best solution, critics say.

Earlier this month, The9 said it would pay Anelka 2.7 million Euro ($3.50 million) to promote online shooter game Firefall developed by its subsidiary Red 5 Studios. The9 will also pay 32 million yuan ($5.05 million) to Shenhua to promote the game as well.

Shenhua's owner Zhu Jun is the founder and chief executive of The9.

The9, in its press release announcing the sponsorship deal, said that "Zhu recused himself from any discussion among the board of directors regarding this matter".

"I think there's a real mis-mash and even potential compliance issue between the ownership of a software company and the ownership of a football company, that seems to be a little bit too crossed over," said Thomas.

Thomas pointed to a 10-year, 400-million pounds ($623.48 million) stadium naming rights agreement between English Premier League leaders Manchester City and Etihad Airways. Etihad Airways is part owned by Abu Dhabi's government and founded by the half brother of Sheikh Mansour, owner of Manchester City.

The deal has created a lot of discussion about how money losing international soccer clubs should be funded.

The Anelka power

Still, despite the criticism, the signing of Anelka has brought more attention to Chinese soccer in the past month than many years combined, said Thomas.

All that is great for advertising dollars for now, said Seth Grossman, China managing director of ad agency Carat.

"It's a good thing for everyone around, if they get success on the field," said Grossman. "Ultimately, there's nothing that will turnaround a passionate fan base quicker than failure on the field. So let's see how they actually do on the pitch."

Soccer fans in China will be watching closely how much of a kick multi-million-dollar global soccer stars can give Chinese soccer, and whether they can outmanoeuvre the skeptics.