Wu Lei was the youngest football player to appear in the Chinese league at the age of 14 and went on to become the all-time top goal scorer for Shanghai SIPG with 169 goals. In 2019 he transferred to Espanyol in La Liga and his debut attracted 40 million viewers in China. He is ethnically Hui, which has a population of around 10 million. They are composed of mainly Muslim Chinese who emigrated from Persia and Türkiye during the time of Mongol rule in China.