Football without Spin - Kaka to Manchester City: the lowdown

January 14 2009

Kaka to Manchester City: the lowdown

The story is big enough to be the top article on almost every newspaper's minds today. Kaka? To Manchester City? The excitement is almost too much to bear, and that's certainly kept the journalists covering the story too revved up to concern themselves with facts. Not to worry, though – Sport without Spin has the definitive answers to all your questions...

How much would the deal cost?

It depends. £40m, says the Daily Star (quoted here from the Guardian). That's only about 40% of most people's estimates, however. Most agree it's going to be a 100m deal – it's just a shame that not everyone checked whether that would be in sterling or Euros. £100m, say the Mirror, Independent and Express, but the Times suggests that City Chairman Garry Cook was waving a cheque (literally?) for €100m. The Sun calls it a £175m bid, surreptitiously redefining the term transfer fee to include Kaka's proposed wages. Read a little further, and their misleading stops and they fall into the £100m camp. They could have taken the Guardian's high road and simply suggest that any fee would dwarf the current record of £47m for Zidane. Lots - that's a safe prediction.

How much will Kaka get paid?

Definitely at least £180,000 a week; so sayeth the Star. The only trouble is that nobody seems to agree. The Express says £200,000 a week, the Sun proposes £280,000 a week, and the Mirror believes the figure will be more like £500,000 a week. To put that in context, the papers' reports could be the difference of £16m a year for Kaka – he might want to bear that in mind for negotiations.

Is the deal to be done now?

Yes, definitely – the idea is for a big name to help make a success of a tough transfer window, say the Guardian:

After more frustration than success in this transfer window so far, with only Chelsea's second-choice left-back Wayne Bridge added to Mark Hughes' struggling side, the City delegation returned to Manchester last night without an answer from Milan but hopeful their offer will eventually prove irresistible to the Italians.

Unless, as the Express reports:

The saga is now set to rumble on until the summer, when it remains to be seen whether Real Madrid will re-enter the race.

Real Madrid?

Of course, Real Madrid, who obviously have hundreds upon hundreds of millions to spend in this turbulent financial crisis, since they've already done the deal with Cristiano Ronaldo for the summer, as was reported once again without evidence, this time by journalist Guillem Balague. Some amazing rumour-mongering done in this article, best exemplified by:

I have gained access to the financial terms of the agreement and while it exists in a purely verbal form at the moment, the player’s lawyers have been fully informed of the details and are aware that penalty clauses have been agreed should either party fail to fulfil their part of the agreement.

Gained access to a verbal contract? Sounds a little bit like hearsay to me. Incidentally, penalty clauses? Does that mean Real pay Ronaldo if they don't bid for him, and vice versa if Ronaldo doesn't engineer a transfer? That seems, well, illegal.

Would Kaka sign for City?

Now, this depends – Kaka's spokesman Diego Kotscho says the only way Kaka would leave Milan is by joining a major European club, as reported in the Telegraph:

Kotscho told Corriere dello Sport: "To accept Manchester City, Kaka wouldn't do a matter based on money, but to the competitiveness of the English side.

"Ricky would like a strong side. He would never do something like Robinho, who, just to earn more, contented himself with not a winning solution."

Which leaves us with two exciting scenarios, given, as we reported, the development of Manchester City under Mark Hughes thus far. The first is that the deal was never on, and never deserved this many column inches. Or maybe, in the second scenario, Kaka would do something like Robinho after all?