Mikel leaves Chelsea for massive deal in China as sports chiefs vow to stop clubs 'burning money'

Mikel had a medical in the port city some 130 kilometres from Beijing on Thursday and the Asian Football Confederation confirmed the deal on Friday.

Mikel's move comes on the day China's leading sports governing body announces plans to cap the spending of the country's super league clubs.

Nigeria international Mikel penned a letter to his "Chelsea family" and tweeted it to his followers on social media.

"To play in the Premier League, the best league in the world, is every professional player's ambition," said Mikel.

"You will always be part of who I am.."

The 29-year-old, who spent more than a decade at Stamford Bridge, was given a free transfer by the London club and will earn £140,000 a week in China, according to local media reports.

"As you will know, I haven't featured as much this season as I would have liked, and at 29 I still have many years in the game ahead of me," he said.

"With this in mind, I feel now is the time to seek a new challenge.

"I'm delighted to be joining Tianjin TEDA FC in China, at a time that the Chinese Super League is really taking off, and I look forward to helping Tianjin TEDA FC continue to grow both on and off the pitch in the next few years."

Mikel won 11 trophies with Chelsea during a spell at the club which consisted of 374 appearances.

Serbia midfielder Nemanja Gudelj moved to Tianjin from Dutch club Ajax on Thursday and Mikel joins former English Premier League standouts Oscar and Carlos Tevez in moving to China over the last week.

Tevez will apparently earning an astonishing £310,000 a week at Shanghai Shenhua.

A spokesperson for China's General Administration of Sport said the country's clubs were "burning money".

And also added on their official website plans to "strengthen examination and supervision of clubs' financial affairs, progressively control clubs' expenditures on first-team players and ensure favourable financial conditions" with the level of spending described as "a grave phenomenon".