How much?

In January it was announced in the press that Manchester City would bid around £100 million for Kaká. They didn’t, of course, they had nothing more than initial talks; it was just that the lower end of the journalistic market had inserted the “c” word (could) that they use all the time to make enough news to keep people interested in their bog roll newspapers.

And of course the media in general then replied to the “news” with rolled eyes and much self-righteous indignation and hands thrown in the air in shock at such an obscene figure. Not a day went by in January without an article or a journalist’s blog on the terrible state of the game and the lack of morals of the Manchester club.

Six months later Real Madrid are said to have offered a similar figure for Ronaldo – the one with no sense of balance as opposed to the one with no career left. So far there has been no shocked reaction on the usual internet sites, and it will be interesting to see if the papers tomorrow carry the same articles they printed in January – will they dare to talk about Real Madrid and Manchester United with the same disdain they showed for Manchester City and their Arab owners?

Of course there is no denying that the figure is obscene. No footballer is worth that amount, especially not in the current climate that the rest of us are living through. Let’s face it, this week £100 million will buy you an entire club.