D | Player Pics | A-Z of Players
N.B. ‘Du’ is his surname, Chinese standard for names is that the family name comes first.
Personal
Fullname: Du Wei
aka: Wei Du
Born: 9 February 1982
Birthplace: Luoyang, China
Signed: August 2005 (Loan signing)
Left: 10 January 2006
Position: Centre-half, defender
Debut: Clyde 2-1 Celtic, Scottish, 9 Jan 2006
Internationals: China
International Caps: 71, None whilst with Celtic
International Goals: 4
Biog
After successfully captaining the China U-23 and Olympic teams, Du Wei moved from Shanghai Shenua to Celtic on a 6 month loan in 2005. Apparently he was rated highly by the legendary Maradona following an under-20s victory over Argentina in 2001, from whom he got a rave review:
‘Du Wei has the perfect sense of how defending should be played. His speed is unparalleled.‘
Quite an accolade but most would now say it was very misplaced, at least for his time at Celtic. Maradona has had a penchant for comments which most others would take with a pinch of salt.
Du Wei’s signing was seen at the time as an example of how far manager Gordon Strachan was willing to cast the net in attempting to bring new players to the club.
It wasn’t to be a long spell at Celtic in the first team.
Du Wei made one appearance for the Celtic first team, the ill-fated Scottish Cup defeat to Clyde on the 9th January 2006; Roy Keane made his debut in the same game. Du Wei was substituted at half-time of that game after he experienced a torrid time which included Du Wei conceding a penalty, and Clyde players easily bypassing him.
The Daily Record newspaper had a silly but predictable headline of “Show Him Du Wei To Go Home” for ex-Celtic player Murdo MacLeod’s column.
Celtic player Adam Virgo later claimed that Du Wei was played in his place for commercial & not footballing reasons. Many were not convinced of this, especially as the match was against Clyde, and if Celtic wanted to cash in on Du Wei, he’d have been played in higher profile games, which he wasn’t.
Adam Virgo: “We played Clyde in the Cup and I was promised again that I would start. The manager played a Chinese boy instead as he was told the game would be live on Chinese television, so the club would get more money.”
Despite various performances for the reserves, Du Wei did not do enough to convince Celtic to make his loan move permanent, and he returned to his parent Chinese club, Shanghai Shenua.
He left Celtic on a good note by remarking well on the club and his disappointment in not being able to cement a place in the first team. So respect to him on that.
His career never reached any great heights in Europe, but he settled playing for sides in China and managed to lead a team to play in the Asian equivalent of the Champions League for their first time.
He later gained some great success winning the coveted East Asian League title and the well respected East Asian Football Championship Most Valuable Player award for 2010. So again, much respect to him.
He played out his time across teams in China, before we believe he called it a day as a player in 2018.
Playing Career
| APPEARANCES | LEAGUE | SCOTTISH CUP | LEAGUE CUP | EUROPE | TOTAL |
| 2005-06 (loan) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Goals: | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Honours with Celtic
None
Pictures
Notes
- The standard in the Far East is for the surname to come first, so note you may see in various reports his name written as Du Wei, but in Europe it is often formally put as Wei Du. Du is the surname.
Articles
Football: Maradona’s praise for Celtic target Wei
Daily Record 2005
CELTIC will land a player tipped for the top by the legendary Diego Maradona if they sign Du Wei.
The Chinese international has kicked off a four-day trial with the Parkhead club who are trying to solve their defensive problems.
And the 6ft 4in defender has arrived in Scotland highly recommended after Argentina’s World Cup- winning superstar Maradona tipped the 23 year-old for the top.
After watching Wei play in a World Youth Cup tournament, Maradona singled out the giant stopper for high praise.
Maradona said: ‘Du Wei has the perfect sense of how defending should be played. His speed is unparalleled.’
Wei had trials with Borussia Moenchengladbach and Kaiserslautern last year but may struggle to get a work permit after failing to play in the required 75 per cent of games in the past two years for China.
If the red tape is overcome and boss Gordon Strachan is impressed he will cost pounds 800,000 from Shanghai Shenhau.