£100m Bid for Kaká? “Absolutely Ridiculous”

“Please don’t make me go to City to play with Mark Hughes. Please, please, please…”


Latest chapter in the Kaká-to-City drama is that much of the Kaka-to-City drama may be just…drama.

(Hype and drama in a transfer saga? Who could have anticipated?)

Current news comes from “a highly placed source close to City’s owner.”

The adviser to Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, City’s billionaire owner, told Observer Sport from Abu Dhabi last night that media coverage of City’s offer for the Milan player, plus reported £500,000-a-week wages, was wildly unrealistic – giving credence to growing rumours in Italy that the story has been hyped up by Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi, in an attempt to earn good publicity when no move materialises and Kaká stays at the San Siro. First reports of the “£100m” bid appeared on a website owned by Berlusconi.

“The reports are absolutely ridiculous and so far wide of the mark it’s unreal,” said the source, who claimed that while contact had been made with Milan, any deal for the former Fifa World Player of the Year would involve an offer nearer to £50m than the reported £100m. “Kaká would command a price around that of previous world-best players. But at the moment it is difficult to pick an exact number.”

So…wait a second. The whole hype and drama from a couple of days ago? Where we’re reading stuff like this?

Last night Milan’s vice-president Adriano Galliani confirmed the club were “evaluating” an offer for Kaka, and gave the midfielder permission to speak to City. The fee widely reporting in Italy as being in the region of €120m (£108m). However unconfirmed reports said City’s total payment will near €150m.

All this stuff is potentially just a plot by Berlusconi to make people love him for NOT selling Kaká for the £100m bid that never existed?

Damn, I love Serie A.

There does seem to be a genuine desire from the folks at Man City to purchase Kaká, but all of the gazillion euro/pound/whatever hype does seem to be coming from the Berlusconi end of things. And Kaká “is also understood to be deeply reluctant to join City – whatever the fee and salary package – unless there is a change of manager.”

Not bad news for the footballing world in general. I can’t have been the only one to wonder — with everything from stocks to oil currently in the toilet — what kinds of investments the City owners have that give them this kind of money in this economy. Because if they still have this kind of money to throw around… Wow. The world tilts on its axis.

If this does turn out to be all Berlusconi-created hype, owners whose finances are located in this world will be breathing a huge sigh of relief.

(Oh, and this is entirely unrelated to the topic at hand, but since I’m probably not going to do another Kaká post for awhile, I thought I’d share the best photo I found on the web. I love the internets. And photoshop.)

Some Related Stories:

Category: World Football