The 25-year-old tasted glory at Rio 2016 as part of the Chinese squad which won the women's team title and will now leave her club team Shanxi to join China Table Tennis Super League (CTTSL) rivals Wuhan.

The fee involved beats the previous highest for the women's CTTSL, set when Shandong paid CNY6.0835 million (£704,000/$912,000/€816,000) for triple world champion Zhu Yuling.

Rules set by the CCTSL prohibit any transfer fees exceeding CNY7 million (£810,000/$1 million/€939,000).

Liu, the current world number one, boasts three gold medals from the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Championships and also has eight World Cup titles to her name.

Despite this, Liu was not selected for singles competition at Rio 2016 by Chinese coaches.

Places in the highly competitive team were instead awarded to London 2012 Olympic champion Li Xiaoxia and world champion Ding Ning, with each country only allowed two berths.

The two Chinese players duly met in the gold medal match, with Ding winning a titanic battle 11-9, 5-11, 14-12, 9-11, 8-11, 11-7, 11-7.

The duo teamed up with Liu to win the team gold medal, which came after a final victory over Germany.