LONDON — One of soccer’s perennial underachievers, Manchester City made an astounding bid to buy Kaka from AC Milan in a failed deal that could have damaged the sport’s image at a time when many clubs and fans are in debt.
Man City, one of the world’s richest clubs after its August sale to an Abu Dhabi consortium, flexed its financial muscle with the reported $147 million bid for Kaka. Negotiations ended late Monday after the player decided to stay at the Italian club.
“I’m worried that, as a game, it looks as if football has no worries and is immune from the world financial crisis,” said Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the players’ union in English football, the Professional Footballers’ Association.
“It’s not a time for any industry to be spending in a cavalier fashion. There’s a serious problem with the world and finance, perfectly illustrated by the banks that were doing well until suddenly there was cavalier spending. It’s brought a lot of problems for ordinary people and we don’t want that to happen in football.”
While Taylor acknowledges that such a star as Kaka should try and earn as much as he can, he says the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening.
Milan also may be forced to reward Kaka’s loyalty with higher wages and that might upset his teammates, among them Ronaldinho, Paolo Maldini and Andriy Shevchenko.
Upset that Kaka might go, the Milan fans staged demonstrations, angry that he might leave for a club which has not won a major title since the 1976 League Cup, the third-tier competition in English soccer.
City’s last league title was in 1968, and two years later it won the European Cup Winners’ Cup, a competition that no longer exists. The club has spent most of its history in the shadow of neighbor Manchester United, which has won 17 leagues titles, a record 11 FA Cups and three European Champions Cups.
Even the buyout by the Abu Dhabi United Group, owned by Sheik Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, hasn’t had an immediate effect.
Although the club was able to break the British transfer record by hiring Robinho from Real Madrid for nearly $47 million — and he rewarded them with 11 league goals — City slumped into the relegation zone. The club is 11th in the standings, four points from last place and with little chance of reaching one of the top four Champions League spots.
By contrast, Kaka helped Milan win the Champions League in 2005 and the team is currently third in Serie A, six points behind Inter Milan. At San Siro, he is a big fish in a big pool. At City, he would easily have been the biggest star, even with Robinho and fellow Brazilians Elano and Jo alongside.
But how long will the Abu Dhabi United Group maintain its ownership of Man City if the club continues to go season after season without any trophies? Taylor doubts that overseas buyers are prepared for the long haul.
“A lot of owners have got unlimited funds,” Taylor said. “But they may well get disenchanted and we may find that the money they have put into the club may just be a loan that needs to be repaid. The club can’t live with that.”
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