Sunday 18 January 2009

Sunday transfer round up

  • Most interesting is a strange story in The Observer which basically rubbishes the whole Kaká transfer. It quotes a 'highly placed source' as saying stories of the £100m bid were "absolutely ridiculous", it makes a big deal of the fact that much of the story has come from Berlusconi's Mediaset website and then says that Kaká isn't interested while Hughes is still in charge. It seems like the writers decided to do a 'Kaká isn't going to City' piece and then threw together various claims - but we'll have to see what happens this week.
  • The very trustworthy Ian Herbert writes that deals are close for Kaká, Wilson Palacios and Craig Bellamy. On Kaká, he mentions the Berlusconi quote that he couldn't say no the volume of money we've offered. He says that City are the club to have stolen Palacios from underneath Spurs' noses. Someone else not going to Spurs is Craig Bellamy, who will not be allowed to move to White Hart Lane by the West Ham hierarchy. I suppose after losing Michael Carrick and Jermain Defoe in that direction it's understandable. But that limits Bellamy's options to City, where he now wants to move. And given that he's on strike, a deal this week looks very likely.
  • The News of the World also reports that we'll get Bellamy for £14m. In the same article they mention the possibility that Kaká could be bought by Real Madrid. I'm sure he'd rather go there, but much of the rumours on this are going to be driven by the political situtation there. Ramon Calderon has just resigned as President after a vote-rigging scandal, and so the new candidates - particularly Florentino Perez - are going to be basing their campaigns on claims about signings such as Kaká. Another NotW report claims that we are the club in for Palacios, having matched Spurs' successful £13million bid.
  • It will be interesting to see if we sign Wilson Palacios and Nigel de Jong. The Mail on Sunday has a report about de Jong (he owns a car business, it's not that interesting) which says very early on that de Jong has agreed a deal to join and will do so immanently for £15m.
  • Buying Palacios and de Jong would likely see Kompany move to centre half permanently. Which would lessen our chances of buying a new centre back this January. Nevertheless, the People reports a £15million move for Chelsea's Brazilian Alex.

1 comment:

Bent the Golden Boot said...

I suppose the Obsever source is the same one who claimed the whole deal was off last Thursday.

There are two important points to make about the potential Kaka transfer to City, irrespective of the claimed sums involved.

Fernando Torres and others have said they could not understand why a player of Kaka's brilliance would dream of a move to City. If City get the opportunity they will tell Kaka he will achieve more satisfaction in helping an 'ordinary' club achieve great things in the next few years. Torres and others like him only want to join a club who have will give him a cast iron guarantee of Champions league football year in year. Where is the honour in that?

Hysterical critics of City are saying this will be the death of Football and how can we spend such huge sums when people are being thrown out of work on a daily basis.

Since the introduction of the Premier League and the revamp of the Champions league the usual top four are effectively a cartel, barring all potential rivals because they get the most TV money every year thus giving each of them a massive advantage in the transfer maerket.

City intend to use funds from their Abu Dhabi owners to break this cartel. This NEW money will significantly benefit world football,the local and European economies through taxation on the transfer and Kaka's income tax obligations. This is not money borrowed by City or will it create any debt.