This is a new one for the UAE.

An ambitious Chinese soccer club has barged in, made an enormous offer — about $22 million — for the forward who has been the Arabian  dominant scorer for four seasons … and is carrying him off.

China soccer apparently is ready to spend some serious money, if they can buy a player already being overpaid (by global standards) in the UAE.

The player is Asamoah Gyan, formerly of English Premier League side Sunderland and Rennes of France, and captain of Ghana’s national team.

Gyan has terrorized the Arabian Gulf League since he joined Al Ain ahead of the 2011-12 season — to the tune of 95 goals in 83 league matches. He set the AGL single-season scoring record in 2012-13 when he scored 31 league goals, in 22 league matches.

He won three league championships with Al Ain, the UAE’s most prominent club, and seemed set to continue playing with the 12-time champions …

Until Shanghai SIPG showed up with a wad of cash.

A club created only a decade ago has moved up to China’s top division, the Super League, and plays in a 53,000-seat stadium — and has designs on being more than an also-ran in the top-flight.

In November, they hired Sven-Goran Eriksson, the former England, Mexico and Ivory Coast coach, as their manager.

The much-traveled Swede spent time in the UAE in 2013-14 as a consultant for the Dubai club Al Nasr — and that is when he would have seen Gyan playing for Al Ain.

Eriksson almost certainly advised Shanghai SIPG to pursue Gyan, and the club did so with enthusiasm.

They made Al Ain an offer they couldn’t refuse — a transfer fee of the aforementioned $22 million — and reportedly are going to pay him $227,000 a week. Making Gyan, who turns 30 in November, one of the highest-paid players in the world.

At The National, we look at this through the prism of UAE football, and the notion of someone wanting (and taking) league’s best player is unprecedented.

It is good news in this sense: A UAE team had a player good enough that they could sell him on and make a significant profit on him. That says something positive about the local league.

The bad news is that a league not from Europe and not from South America apparently is competing for the same sorts of players the UAE has pursued over the past five years.

In fact, nearly every prominent player connected with UAE sides in the past year also have been talking to clubs in China.

Two players pursued by UAE teams in the past six months, Demba Ba and Tim Cahill, each ended up with Shanghai Shenhua.

Where they will get a chance, this fall, to go up against UAE alumnus Asamoah Gyan.