Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Man City's new owners will hike-up transfer fees...

Manchester United spent weeks trying to purchase Berbatov for the 'right money', the Reds and Spurs had spent weeks haggling over the likely fee which eventually spilled out into the public domain. Clearly United were banking on no other club coming in and offering anywhere near what Spurs were demanding for the 27 year-Old Bulgarian striker, £30m to be precise.

United's Berbatov acquisition plan looked sound, that was until yesterday morning, when 'loads-of-money' Man City pitched up and then it emerged that Spurs had accepted a totally ridiculous offer of over £31m from 'cash-rich' Man City.

The transfer carnage didn't end there by a long way, as the Blues flush with new Arabian money made several moves on transfer deadline day. City eventually went on to break the British transfer record for Robinho which in turn had left Chelsea with the choice of either matching or beating City's offer - in the end the London club did neither as they ended up losing a dramatic transfer battle that lasted less than 24 hours.

United were also faced with either losing Berbatov or matching City's over-the-top offer. Losing out to City on this occasion was unthinkable given how far the Champions had gone to acquire Berbatov, but winning this battle came at the cost of losing out on the £7m transfer fee Hull had offered for Fraizer Campbell who goes on loan to White Hart Lane for the remainder of the season.

What happens with the future of Campbell, time will tell, but already City and their new owners have made a devastating impact on English football by hiking up the price of transfers which is a trend that is likely to continue.

I personally would not rule out City buying players for the sake of stopping rivals as Chelsea did to United a few seasons back.

The Arabs might well be good for City, but it's questionable if they will turn out to be good for English football as a whole. What's more, if the playing field was uneven before the events of Monday, it could soon resemble a 1:1 incline if City start shelling out £100m on one player.

It is doubtful that UEFA and the Premier League will allow that scenario to continue without interjecting by introducing controls in a bid to ensure there is some parity for the sake of fair play and 'the good of the game'.

The situation is bad enough as it stands with the current top four and few would argue that we could do with that little cartel being broken up, but not at the expense of becoming what could be turn out to be a division which is dominated by one team alone.

There has been a lot of talk that UEFA will soon be taking heavily in debt clubs to task; reports claim that German clubs have been complaining to Michel Platini.

Acting president of the newly formed European Club Association
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has the ear of Platini, the former Bayern star wants to see UEFA taking a more proactive role when dealing with issues concerning what the Germans see as an unfair playing field where finance is concerned.

Granted the current griping centres on clubs in debt, but do not rule out UEFA trying to introduce measures to control transfer fee excesses in the not too distant future too.

There is a suspicion among many English fans that UEFA does not like to see to English clubs winning in Europe and so it came as no surprise to hear Platini recently restate his intention to take action with a view to introducing rules on how clubs are managed financially. Related comment:Will City ever be bigger than United?.

6 comments:

  1. HaHa funny init, it was fine while you were playing the same stunts in the 90's but now Chelsea and City can more than match you, you rags dont like it one bit. well tough!

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  2. just out of interest, how much did united pay for Rio, Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez? They could always have pulled out of the deal if they were morally opposed to the high price. Bottom line is This is a beast that has long since been out of the cage, and United have been feeding it for years...

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  3. How You've got the brazen front to accuse anybody else of hiking transfer fees is embarrassing. United have been doing precisely this for the past 25 years. The fact is you don't like competition from anywhere and get the hump if everything isn't loaded in your favour.

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  4. talk about sour grapes. pull out a calculator and see if you can tot up the total cost of the man utd squad.

    you talk of a "sound" acquisition plan. would this be the same plan which included meeting Berbatov and conducting a medical without gaining permission to talk to him?

    at least city are producing talented youth. the last "talent" to come through the united system were fletcher and that hapless Irish defender.

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  5. You are dead right. And we made you pay way over the odds for the smoking Bulgarian you illegally poached last night too!

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  6. Shock horror! Not like yoonited to get upset when things aren't going their way. I think the writing is on the wall for you lot unless the Glazers can either remortgage the swamp, borrow more money at obscene rates or sell the club. Or will they just raise season ticket prices again? lol! Lets face it if things carry on as they are you won't be able to buy anyone and your academy has done absolutely b*gger all recently, so looks like you're doomed!

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