When the Chinese Super League summer transfer window closed at midnight on Friday, the country's authorities "could feel quietly satisfied and declare their mission to cool the hyper-inflated player market a success," according to Michael Church of REUTERS. Previous windows "had seen the Asian transfer record shattered three times in 18 months." The big-money signings and high wages "were threatening to spiral out of control," and when Hebei China Fortune paid Beijing Guoan €20M ($22.9M) for local defender Zhang Chengdong, the authorities "stepped in to calm rampant over-spending." Regulations implemented on June 14 saw football authorities impose a 100% levy on foreign signings of more than 40M yuan ($5.9M), "leaving clubs uncertain of how to tackle the altered landscape." Speculation "that had raged for months" linking "high-profile" strikers such as Chelsea's Diego Costa and Borussia Dortmund's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang with moves to the CSL on deals worth more than €100M ($114.7M) "shuddered to a halt almost overnight" (REUTERS, 7/15). The AFP reported University of Salford sports business professor Simon Chadwick said that the transfer tax and limits on the number of foreign players to three a match "killed" the market. Chinese clubs were under "heavy pressure from the government" to stop spending on foreign talent. Chadwick: "Clubs have erred on the side of caution and desisted from making the kind of high-profile, high-value signings that we have seen over the last few years. The state has effectively spoken and when the [Chinese] state speaks, people in organizations are expected to listen" (AFP, 7/16).