An agent was talking, as they do, about interest in his client, an up-and-coming South American player. All the top clubs in Europe were swarming around him, he said: Barcelona, Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Chelsea, Manchester United — and Manchester City.
For a moment, it called to mind the scene in Blackadder Goes Forth when the eponymous hero talks of “the great British universities: Oxford, Cambridge — and Hull”. Money, though, has transformed the perception of City, at least where players’ agents are concerned. As Garry Cook, their chief executive, put it 12 months ago, the wealth of Sheikh Mansour has given the club “a seat at the table to explain the story”.
And now that the story has moved on, with enhanced prospects of competing for silverware rather than merely adding to their bank balance, more leading players are willing to listen.
There needs to be more, though, than money and the vague promise of success. Already City have lined up an £11 million deal to sign Jérôme Boateng, the Hamburg defender, and have held discussions over a number of other players based in Germany and Italy — Mesut Özil, Mirko Vucinic, Leonardo Bonucci, Benedikt Howedes — but their “player acquisition group” has also identified more ambitious targets such as Ángel Di María and Oscar Cardozo, of Benfica, and, more audacious yet, Cesc Fàbregas, Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres. And yes, Roberto Mancini is involved in that process and is firmly expected to be manager next season.
Fàbregas is unlikely to be tempted to Manchester, while Di María, according to reports in Argentina last night, is intent on joining Real — which, if true, may require a rethink for Franck Ribéry, the Bayern Munich winger, who also has eyes for the Spanish club. City feel that Gerrard and Torres are realistic targets, given Liverpool’s woes, but if they are to have any hope of signing the most coveted players — Gerrard, Torres, Fàbregas, Di María, Ribéry — they simply have to be able to offer Champions League football.
And that is why, in City’s case, the much-hyped “fourth-place play-off” against Tottenham Hotspur this evening is about far more than the riches that are usually associated with a top-four finish. For many clubs, Champions League qualification has become an end in itself.
For Tottenham, it would be a fabulous boost as they look towards a brighter future at a new 56,000-capacity stadium that would generate the funds to help them to threaten the London hegemony of Arsenal and Chelsea. For City, whose owners expect their riches to produce a dominant club on the pitch, fourth place would represent not a landing platform but a launchpad.
Until now, City have been able to attract what one observer rather ungraciously referred to yesterday as “a lower class of mercenary”. Kolo Touré, Wayne Bridge, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Emmanuel Adebayor and Carlos Tévez all signed up after drifting out of favour at bigger clubs where Champions League football had been on offer. Shay Given, Joleon Lescott, Gareth Barry and Craig Bellamy might have fancied a grander stage but were persuaded to join City on account of the “project” and, let’s be blunt about this, the money on offer. As for Robinho, neither he nor the club thought about it long enough to realise what they were getting involved in.
The list of players City have managed to attract is impressive, but so, in a different way, is the number of big names for whom untold riches were not reason enough to join a club who last won a leading trophy in 1976. John Terry and Kaká — two men characterised as coming from opposite ends of football’s moral spectrum — are the most famous examples, but, if it had come down only to money, Gianluigi Buffon, David Villa, Samuel Eto’o and Thierry Henry might have joined City in January of last year.
To this point, City have been regarded a little sniffily by most of European football’s elite. Cook has held constructive meetings with Joan Laporta, the outgoing Barcelona president, and with officials at Real Madrid, but in Italy the club are tainted by his description of AC Milan as having been “bottlers” in negotiations over Kaká. As for English football’s aristocracy — Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United, even Aston Villa, Everton and Tottenham — they still like to regard City as arrivistes.
Everton remain bitter over the unedifying saga of Lescott’s transfer to City last summer, but, over at Anfield the feelings are closer to fear as Liverpool ponder the threat of being exiled from the elite. Tottenham’s long-term prospects appear bright — not only down to stability and vision at boardroom level but to Harry Redknapp’s success in building a talented young squad, albeit at a fair expense — but they would represent a challenge to the established order, whereas City, in the eyes of many, threaten to change everything.
Elsewhere, fear, envy and contempt have been found in almost equal measure. Sir Alex Ferguson has been unfailingly dismissive of City’s prospects, but is surely aware that the gulf between the clubs — 40 points last season, 16 points this — is only going to narrow while they are working to such drastically different financial guidelines. As for Chelsea, is it any coincidence that it is since City’s emergence under Arab ownership that Roman Abramovich — mega-rich but not mega-mega-rich, as Sheikh Mansour is — has signed up to Uefa’s crusade towards “financial fair play”?
It would be no surprise if the prize of Champions League football eludes City over the coming days. Their history tells you that, if any club are capable of blowing this situation — which could mean beating Tottenham this evening and then losing away to West Ham United on Sunday — it is City. But the joke has been on City for far too long. Under the benevolent ownership of Sheikh Mansour, they mean serious business. Just how serious — and just how quickly — might well hinge on their result against Tottenham tonight.
For a moment, it called to mind the scene in Blackadder Goes Forth when the eponymous hero talks of “the great British universities: Oxford, Cambridge — and Hull”. Money, though, has transformed the perception of City, at least where players’ agents are concerned. As Garry Cook, their chief executive, put it 12 months ago, the wealth of Sheikh Mansour has given the club “a seat at the table to explain the story”.
And now that the story has moved on, with enhanced prospects of competing for silverware rather than merely adding to their bank balance, more leading players are willing to listen.
There needs to be more, though, than money and the vague promise of success. Already City have lined up an £11 million deal to sign Jérôme Boateng, the Hamburg defender, and have held discussions over a number of other players based in Germany and Italy — Mesut Özil, Mirko Vucinic, Leonardo Bonucci, Benedikt Howedes — but their “player acquisition group” has also identified more ambitious targets such as Ángel Di María and Oscar Cardozo, of Benfica, and, more audacious yet, Cesc Fàbregas, Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres. And yes, Roberto Mancini is involved in that process and is firmly expected to be manager next season.
Fàbregas is unlikely to be tempted to Manchester, while Di María, according to reports in Argentina last night, is intent on joining Real — which, if true, may require a rethink for Franck Ribéry, the Bayern Munich winger, who also has eyes for the Spanish club. City feel that Gerrard and Torres are realistic targets, given Liverpool’s woes, but if they are to have any hope of signing the most coveted players — Gerrard, Torres, Fàbregas, Di María, Ribéry — they simply have to be able to offer Champions League football.
And that is why, in City’s case, the much-hyped “fourth-place play-off” against Tottenham Hotspur this evening is about far more than the riches that are usually associated with a top-four finish. For many clubs, Champions League qualification has become an end in itself.
For Tottenham, it would be a fabulous boost as they look towards a brighter future at a new 56,000-capacity stadium that would generate the funds to help them to threaten the London hegemony of Arsenal and Chelsea. For City, whose owners expect their riches to produce a dominant club on the pitch, fourth place would represent not a landing platform but a launchpad.
Until now, City have been able to attract what one observer rather ungraciously referred to yesterday as “a lower class of mercenary”. Kolo Touré, Wayne Bridge, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Emmanuel Adebayor and Carlos Tévez all signed up after drifting out of favour at bigger clubs where Champions League football had been on offer. Shay Given, Joleon Lescott, Gareth Barry and Craig Bellamy might have fancied a grander stage but were persuaded to join City on account of the “project” and, let’s be blunt about this, the money on offer. As for Robinho, neither he nor the club thought about it long enough to realise what they were getting involved in.
The list of players City have managed to attract is impressive, but so, in a different way, is the number of big names for whom untold riches were not reason enough to join a club who last won a leading trophy in 1976. John Terry and Kaká — two men characterised as coming from opposite ends of football’s moral spectrum — are the most famous examples, but, if it had come down only to money, Gianluigi Buffon, David Villa, Samuel Eto’o and Thierry Henry might have joined City in January of last year.
To this point, City have been regarded a little sniffily by most of European football’s elite. Cook has held constructive meetings with Joan Laporta, the outgoing Barcelona president, and with officials at Real Madrid, but in Italy the club are tainted by his description of AC Milan as having been “bottlers” in negotiations over Kaká. As for English football’s aristocracy — Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United, even Aston Villa, Everton and Tottenham — they still like to regard City as arrivistes.
Everton remain bitter over the unedifying saga of Lescott’s transfer to City last summer, but, over at Anfield the feelings are closer to fear as Liverpool ponder the threat of being exiled from the elite. Tottenham’s long-term prospects appear bright — not only down to stability and vision at boardroom level but to Harry Redknapp’s success in building a talented young squad, albeit at a fair expense — but they would represent a challenge to the established order, whereas City, in the eyes of many, threaten to change everything.
Elsewhere, fear, envy and contempt have been found in almost equal measure. Sir Alex Ferguson has been unfailingly dismissive of City’s prospects, but is surely aware that the gulf between the clubs — 40 points last season, 16 points this — is only going to narrow while they are working to such drastically different financial guidelines. As for Chelsea, is it any coincidence that it is since City’s emergence under Arab ownership that Roman Abramovich — mega-rich but not mega-mega-rich, as Sheikh Mansour is — has signed up to Uefa’s crusade towards “financial fair play”?
It would be no surprise if the prize of Champions League football eludes City over the coming days. Their history tells you that, if any club are capable of blowing this situation — which could mean beating Tottenham this evening and then losing away to West Ham United on Sunday — it is City. But the joke has been on City for far too long. Under the benevolent ownership of Sheikh Mansour, they mean serious business. Just how serious — and just how quickly — might well hinge on their result against Tottenham tonight.