Manchester City: Making Every Transfer Ever Look Reasonable Since 2008

By: Taylor Rockwell | January 22nd, 2009

I know this isn’t really Manchester United business (in fact, it isn’t at all), but in reading articles regarding Citeh’s latest move for former Hamburg midfield Nigel de Jong, I was forced to write something. It has been reported today that de Jong’s contract had a buy out clause which could have been activated in April (4 months from now) for £2.3 million. Instead, Citeh purchased the Dutch international for £19 million.

Now, I was no math major, but I know a couple of things:
1) The current economic climate is shit;
2) The difference between the two above sums (£16.7 million) means that Citeh will effectively be paying £1 million per game for a relatively unproven player;
3) Citeh didn’t even bat an eyelash before agreeing to that transfer fee.

Now, using the powers of addition, #1 + #2 + #3 = Citeh have more money than God. Seriously. That doesn’t even feel like an exaggeration for emphasis at this point. I mean, look at the way United went about signing Berba this summer. The Bulgarian was a proven goal scorer with a distinguished on-field reputation, but due to a variety of issues (including some character problems), we spent roughly four months haggling over a price and really only caved to the demands of Spurs because our blue neighbors tried to swoop for our prized transfer.

Fast forward to yesterday when Citeh, facing a relegation battle, scoffed at a paltry £19 million fee and paraded about their new signing as if he and Craig Bellamy made up for a much larger failure earlier in the week.

And it’s that last point that made me less concerned about Citeh being able to buy the nation of Brazil. That is, you can have all the money in the world, but if you don’t look like you know what you’re doing, then you probably don’t know what you’re doing. And when rumors circulate that your delegation has remained in Italy to attempt to sign Totti and/or Buffon, you definitely don’t know what you’re doing. Since becoming the Middle Eastlands, Citeh haven’t hesitated to display their wealth nor discuss publicly it’s ramifications on the transfer market. But what they haven’t been able to do is bring stability to the club (something it hasn’t had in a very long while).

Think of it this way, if you go out to a bar with a shit reputation/physical appearance but with all of your money on display, who are you going to attract? Quality women interested in your personality and character? No… you’re going to go home with a skeezy chick who wants your money and gives you Syphilis (and yes, in this scenario Robinho is the chick and Bellamy is the Syphilis). That’s why no one should be surprised when Kaka turns down the money. It wasn’t about loyalty to Milan. It was about his loyalty to success. And when a club looks like Citeh and acts like it has insane owners, it generally turns out to be Manchester Citeh with insane owners.

So until they realize that throwing money at every decent player isn’t going to make the situation any better, expect Citeh to keep buying headcases who will desert them at the drop of a hat (or the drop of a Kaka, as the situation may be) or unproven players for insane sums of money. For now however, I am surprised to say that what was once a fear of the billionaires from Dubai is now a respect and love of Fergie and David Gill that I’ve never had before.