Of Transfers and Of Riches

While Real Madrid are speading the wealth around the world of football, Srikant Iyer takes a deeper look on how other heavywieghts around Europe are coping with it.

Ford, GM and Chrysler find themselves in ruins...the unfortunate people in Darfur are still fighting for power, water and their lives...economies are being restructured and corrected ...and a certain club called Real Madrid is still living in La La Land (an imaginary fantasy land where life is a breeze, riches are nothing new and the Pandora’s box never opened)

Florentino-P-rez-001 Aah! The angelic whites!! La La Land has been their home ever since Perez gained prominence. Since then Madrid have always been the biggest movers and shakers in football transfers. Bringing in Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo, Beckham, they made themselves a brand no one has ever reached before. The ultimate club to play for.

All the best ones seemed to wanna play in it! Even after the “Galacticos Era” officially ended, Real Madrid remained unaffected. Nistelrooy, Robinho, Sneijder, Van Der Vaart, Robben, Cannavaro....an awe inspiring list, a dream team for many, routine business for the Bernabeu.

163 million Euros for just two players not only displays the Galacticos’ financial strength but its immense, seemingly bottomless marketing potential. The disregard with which such crass amounts of money is thrown, shows Real Madrid has a lot more to come...Apparently football is immune to the concept of recession. With Villa and Ribery being their other high profile targets, this transfer season will have lots to write about.

The financial polarity is clear to be seen in the big three of club football, England, Spain and Italy. While clubs in Italy are scrounging around for measly sums of money to fund their transfers, most deals tend to be part-transfers. Luckily for them, there seems to be no dearth of upcoming football talents. Juventus, after signing Diego, has decided that buying more foreign stars will destroy their balance books and is dealing with country-made stars like D’Agostino, Pasqual, Quagliarella (giving De Ceglie, Giovinco, Marchisio and others as part-transfer baits). Milan, who sold their most cherished asset to Madrid are still unable to sign anyone big and are resorting to hot prospects like Cissokho, Dzeko, Thiago Silva unlike Juventus which refurbished itself with stars like Salas, Di Vaio and Nedved after selling Zidane for a then-record amount. Even Inter, which has won four successive Scudetto, seems to be on the verge of giving away their star striker Zlatan “Ibracadabra” Ibrahimovic in a part-exchange plus cash deal either with Drogba-Chelsea or with Eto-Barca.

Spain is not far behind. Barca, having recently won the Champions League, La Liga and the Copa Del Rey (an unprecedented achievement in Spain!) doesn’t seem to be in a mood to spend extravagantly, unlike their rivals. Firstly because they don’t have enough money, leading Club President Laporta to remark and wonder where Real Madrid get their money from( hinting on possible devious sources) and also stating in a face saving swoop that “While Real BUY their stars, we MAKE ours!!” Valencia are still in financial jail as they attempt to trim their squad by selling their best players (read Villa, Silva, Juan Mata, maybe even Marchena!!) to those who can afford them.

Then there is England. Probably the only high profile league where profitable football can be managed thanks to a mammoth TV rights deal and many an awesome stadium. The big-four and Manchester City are capable of bringing in most of the big-name stars albeit working towards eliminating their financial debts.( Man City going the other way, aims at increasing club debts to bring them at par with the top four!) Arsenal, as always, seems to have a relatively quiet transfer season, although they wouldn’t mind splashing the cash on a dashing new youngster. After Arshavin was bought in, their quota of experienced stars to be bought was seemingly complete. However, players such as Clichy and Adebayor are constantly linked to clubs in Italy and with Arsenal still in huge debts courtesy an Emirates Stadium, these options don’t seem farfetched.

Chelsea has always been a club heavily involved in the transfer market ever since the Abramovich era started. But after having been out-priced for Ribery and Villa, they now look towards Aguero to shore up the frontline. Former player Glen Johnson is being scouted with great interest by Ancelotti although the player’s spite at being underused in his previous stint in Chelsea is well known. Surprisingly, there are more probably transfers out than in this season at Chelsea. Sheva is being linked to clubs in France. Deco and Carvalho are probably on their way to Mourinho-Land at Inter. Drogba’s time may have come to an end at Chelsea too!!

Liverpool, After finally becoming challengers to the Premier Divisions, the spirits are high at the club. Imagine their chagrin when rivals Man Utd bid an audacious 40 Million pounds on star striker Torres! Pretty much every player here, has been linked to somewhere else (Xabi Alonso, Mascherano. Arbeloa, Benayoun) albeit without any concrete probability, except for perhaps Dossena to Juventus.

Lastly come Man Utd. Their newly found riches seem to be supplemented by newly found balance in the side (if you believe Zidane, and I believe Zidane!). Finally they can fund those few extra pounds which seem to separate Tevez from Old Trafford, although feelings of betrayal are high and the riches of Man City are alluring! The red Devils are constantly linked with strikers such as Huntelaar, Benzema, Eto and even Trezeguet as they look to fill up their array of attackers with Tevez’s imminent departure and Berbatov’s forever sluggishness. But the premier league winners are a very complete side in themselves apart for the forward line-up and will need to make just 2 signings in that department to finish off their transfer season while putting away the rest of the Christiano Ronaldo booty in the bank to give some much need smoothening over to their Glazer-funded debts.

With wannabe-Chelsea in Manchester City being linked to just about anybody in the world (and they have what it takes to pull out a few surprise transfers out of the hat) and Real Madrid deciding to redistribute wealth all over the football world, this season’s transfer season looks set to topple last year’s excitement by more than a mile. After the Kaka and Ronaldo dual saga, personally I can believe anything!