FC Copenhagen chairman Stale Solbakken suggests that Manchester City’s spending will ruin football.
“The amounts of money that have been mentioned are incredible,” Solbakken told Ekstra-Bladet.
“I think that such incredible sums will take part in destroying football.
“They are creating too big a mental distance between what we call reality and then Manchester City.”
The idea of City’s fiscal force frightens, but its tangible affect has been negligible.
City have not upset the competitive climate in the Premier League. They sit just 9th in the table, with 31 points from 25 matches, and that represents improvement from winning three of their last five in the league. Before they were flirting with relegation.
Aside from the odd Robinho, City have not fleeced the world’s biggest stars from their clubs. Kaka rejected triple his current salary. David Villa and Gigi Buffon turned down deals as well. The only financial flexing City have done thus far is overpaying for Craig Bellamy and Wayne Bridge.
City’s main hindrance signing players has been their perception as an unsuccessful club. This also seems to be their critics’ point of contention.
Manchester City are not deemed a threat because they distort financial reality. Clubs already do that. Nothing divides the gods from the clods in European football more than the Champions League.
There are also disparate television and merchandising deals on the continent. Barcelona and Real Madrid operate under different financial considerations than the rest of La Liga. Ditto for Bayern Munich in Germany and for AC Milan, Juventus and Inter in Serie A.
Spending obscene money disproportionately doesn’t bother football people. It’s the notion of an upstart Manchester City doing it that is the problem. Criticism of City is not censuring the rich, but the nouveau riche.
Perhaps, it’s not football that’s going to be destroyed, but a complacent aristocracy.
