Oil Tycoon reportedly offers $300M for star soccer player

[Hoggage_54]

http://www.thestar.com/sports/article/573045

Cathal Kelly
STAFF REPORTER

While the giants of the sporting world are retrenching in the face of global recession, one Arab sheikh is reportedly in the process of obliterating the upper limits of athlete salaries.

Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, brother of the ruler of Abu Dhabi, is said to have offered a deal last week worth $300 million – $250 million for the rights, $50 million for salary – for a Brazilian soccer star. And that's just for year one.

Four months ago, the sheikh – whose enormous oil wealth is estimated at $27 billion – bought a middling English soccer club, Manchester City. Now he proposes to make it his personal fantasy team.

The current object of his fancy is a 26-year-old named Kaka. Sheikh Mansour has reportedly offered Kaka's current team, AC Milan, $200 million to procure his services. That's in addition to $33 million for Kaka's agents and another $17 million for his father, who acts as his son's adviser. Total purchase price – $250 million. Roughly speaking, the equivalent of the gross domestic product of Tonga. The current soccer transfer record is $92 million for Zinedine Zidane in 2001.

Today's London Observer claims the numbers — emanating mostly from a website owned by Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the owner of AC Milan — have been dismissed as "wide of the mark" by an unnamed aide to the sheikh.

Kaka – nicknamed for the diminutive of his first name, Ricardo – was voted the world's best player in 2007. He is also an evangelical Christian who likes to flaunt his faith.

On several momentous occasions, Kaka has stripped off his jersey to reveal an undershirt with the message: "I belong to Jesus." He bragged that he was a virgin on the night of his wedding.

The sheikh is said to be proposing to guarantee Kaka an after-tax wage of $25 million a year on a four-year deal. That would put his annual gross income at roughly $50 million, far and away the most ever paid to a team athlete. Considering that Kaka tithes a tenth of his pay to the church, the only man happier than his retainers would be his minister.

Currently, the best-paid team athlete in the world is New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez. This year the 33-year-old third baseman will earn $40 million.

The sheer size of the reported offer has set the soccer world on its ear. In the past, deals this size have been talked about, mainly as fishing tales circling around a new generation of oil-rich owners, many of them from Russia. That talk dried up with the global credit crunch. But Sheikh Mansour is seemingly immune to shifts in the market. If he comes up short, he can always go to his family, whose total holdings may surpass $1 trillion.

If it makes Kaka the highest paid player in the world, Manchester City's spree would continue. One of Mansour's representatives has publicly mused about bidding another $250 million for Cristiano Ronaldo, voted the world's top player in 2008.

Arsene Wenger, manager of more humbly endowed English rival Arsenal, marvelled, "I don't feel any connection with (the Manchester City offer) at all because we live in a football club which lives in the real world."

Dave Whelan, chair of another league rival, was more succinct: "That is totally barmy."

[Hoggage_54]

If you are wondering where all that money you spent on gas over the summer is going, now you know.

[Matt]

Yes this is big news over here, Kaka said if he came to M/City it wouldnt be for the money. Of course thats a load of shit, but this isnt by far the end of these big signings, its just the begining...

[BuffedGuy]

Wasting the wealth of the Muslims on frivolity and extravagance. May we return to the time when our leaders slept on the floor for fear of spending the wealth of the people on luxury goods like mattresses.

The amount of money these clowns waste is absurd. Your oil will not last long. Soon the West will be free from oil altogether, and you will be reduced to poverty. What have you done with a hundred years of wealth except waste it on senseless things like this?

[D7M]

Wasting the wealth of the Muslims on frivolity and extravagance. May we return to the time when our leaders slept on the floor for fear of spending the wealth of the people on luxury goods like mattresses.

The amount of money these clowns waste is absurd. Your oil will not last long. Soon the West will be free from oil altogether, and you will be reduced to poverty. What have you done with a hundred years of wealth except waste it on senseless things like this?

you really think "the West" will be free from oil anytime soon?

[Tock]

you really think "the West" will be free from oil anytime soon?

Sooner or later, yes. Probably later, but eventually.
And all that $$$ will have been spent on everything but preparing for the day that they have only sand to sell.

[D7M]

Right. My point was exactly that....that it will be later, not sooner.

[goose]

Wasting the wealth of the Muslims on frivolity and extravagance. May we return to the time when our leaders slept on the floor for fear of spending the wealth of the people on luxury goods like mattresses.

The amount of money these clowns waste is absurd. Your oil will not last long. Soon the West will be free from oil altogether, and you will be reduced to poverty. What have you done with a hundred years of wealth except waste it on senseless things like this?

Thats the problem with the gulf countries that corruption is so high

the truth is if muslims really paid zacar (2% of your wealth every year) you would not have one poor muslim in the world,this is according to the prophet.So sick the poverty in countries like Saudi......

[Flagg]

Well the Sheikh shouldn't be too cock sure, Man City are only 4 points above relegation zone. We'll see how much he loves Man City if they get relegated this season.

[Matt]

Well the Sheikh shouldn't be too cock sure, Man City are only 4 points above relegation zone. We'll see how much he loves Man City if they get relegated this season.

I can live in hope lol..

[Flagg]

Well anyway, it's not like the Sheik should spend any of that money on something worthwhile, like a lil aid to somewhere like, oooh I don't know, GAZA??

Sheiks bumped up the price of oil at the worst time. They're slowly killing F1 and now Football. Christ, I hope oil runs out soon...