Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Kaka turns down largest transfer in futbol history

For those that don't keep up with soccer that much I'll give you a bit of background. Manchester City was recently purchased by the Abu Dhabi group. Which that basically translates into they were bought by Dubai. Which means they have more money then they know what to do with. They broke the British transfer record this year when they signed Robinho for 32 million pounds. Which converts to $46.6 million US. Dude did it just for the money as he was being lured by Chelsea and after it was all said and done he had no idea what team he had signed for. What makes this even funnier is that Manchester City are in 15th spot (out of 20). So during the January transfer month they claimed they would make BIG signings. So they approached AC Milan's Kaka. They offered him a record setting 100 MILLION POUNDS! or $145,691,115 DOLLARS! Dude would make $364k a week....a WEEK! He said he wants to grow old at Milan. I mean from a soccer aspect I would much rather play for Milan, they are much better than Man City. But the question is what would you do? And what do you think about this? For the record the most expensive soccer transfer in history is....Zidane from Juventes to Real Madrid back in 2001 for 48 million pounds or $69 million dollars.

27 comments:

Poorman said...

In Kaka's case, I am sure he has more money as is than he knows what to do with, so I would have stuck with Milan to if he was comfortable there. Sounds like Man City is pretty nubsauce anyway, so I'm sure he would have been miserable.

I'll probably have a longer reaction to this when I have time, because this is a general sports topic I always think about. For instance, why a player like CC Sabathia, signs for 160mil with new york where he supposedly didnt want to be, instead of 110mil at other places where he wanted to play. I just dont really ever grasp what someone could do with 160mil that they couldnt do with 110mil

pex said...

true prime, but that is 50 million dollars, almost 50% more. anyway is a transfer fee just to change teams and they also get a salary? i'm guessing by transfer fee you just mean theyre gonna get paid that much to play for man city.

i agree with prime though about kaka. he probably enjoys playing with milan and already has tons of money. i'm guessing for an athlete its a bit different, but i mean changing teams means changing your whole life (house, friends, schools for you kids, all that stuff). for an average person like me id have to be really pumped about a new job to make all those sacrifices

booncakes said...

fuck that i would take it in a heartbeak. I have the same mindset as adam demonstrated with prime (about the $50 mil). Kaka may be rich already, but 365k a week is worth it for any athlete.

booncakes said...

after reading what i just wrote, i know it's not worth it for any athlete. all i was trying to say is that offier is probably 60% more than he makes now so i'd def do it

term said...

Stay at Milan simply because Man City is a joke. Switching teams would not be worth that kind of money when he is already making good money at Milan. He actually has a chance to win the European title at Milan; not to mention he would be in a better position to win footballer of the year there. All of us should be aware that how well you play in soccer has a lot to do with the players around you.

I'm sure it is a big raise, but I believe that the money=happiness relationship has diminishing returns the higher the value of money. So that extra money might not be worth the happiness he has at Milan (versus a team who could be relegated from the EPL this season).

Poorman said...

my point had nothing to do with the salary increase. i am fully aware that its an extra 50 or whatever mil, and a 50% pay increase. my point was that i feel that to any normal person (exclude michael vick, etc.), 110mil should be the exact same amount as 160mil, aka more money than you can spend. i mean, what is a person thinking when pondering this. "man i really could use that extra 50 mil, my 10 mansions and 25 sports cars really just arent doing it for me anymore. im gonna go play somewhere that i absolutely dont want to be so i can go buy 6 new mansions, a few more porsches, and bathe with 100's for the rest of my life".

that just my opinion tho, im probably underestimating the greed that exists now-a-days, but i certainly wouldn't make myself look like a chump by leaving milan to go to a garbage team for a pay raise when im already rich

pex said...

maybe if you think about the money abstractly like you are, but these numbers are real to them. if you are given an offer on paper that is 50% more than another, regardless of what that number is, you'd be hard pressed to pick the smaller number

term said...

I honestly think you can also compare it to buying things like cars. For instance: I walk into a car dealership. I look to my left and see a Honda Insight. I look to my right and see a brand new Acura TSX. Now on paper, the Insight is over 50% cheaper than the TSX AND it gets much better gas mileage. Obviously I should ignore the quality of the vehicle and make the economic choice.

Wrong. I don't. Honda Insights are for douches and I want to look baller in a TSX. Just like Man City is full of douches and Milan is baller.

I know I make some abstract connections when discussing things so you all might disagree with that analogy. I think it portrays the same kind of trade off as Kaka would have to make: taking less quality for better economics. All of us have done this when making any kind of consumer decisions day in and day out. Please note that this ONLY APPLIES TO THE PERCENT PART OF THE ARGUMENT. I REALIZE THAT $60 MIL OR WHATEVER IS ABSOLUTELY A LOT OF MONEY. I just want to debunk this % difference argument.

I gotta feeling I have some flames on the way though.

Poorman said...

well if you said to me, you have a choice, im gonna give you 150mil, or 100mil, sure I'll take 150. But if your saying you can take 100mil and be happy, or take 150mil and hate your job for a few years, ill stick with 100mil, because i cant even spend all of that 100mil anyway

Staboski said...

To answer Pex's question the "Trasnfer Fee" is complicated in what exactly it is. Basically that money is split between the player, agents, and the selling team. What % goes to each is debated in each transfer, some transfers even have "performance clauses" in it where the selling team gets a bigger % if the player does well for example for their new team. On top of that transfer fee the player will then get a salary along with it. So the player would get a portion of the transfer fee + whatever negotiated salary. Hey remember when Morgan left 3D for that other team for more money in CS. Look what happened to thim. Look at Beckham coming over to the MLS....great move there Becks, thats why hes now on loan with Milan. For me I'm not switching from AC Milan to Man City. Now if someone like Real Madrid or Man Utd offered that type of cash it would be a different debate.

booncakes said...

another thing to maybe think about: if the new owners are from the UAE, maybe they are looking to change the culture at man city. if they are willing to pay that much for kaka, then they will probably fork over cash for other good players. it may take a few years, but they could eventually be good. poor argument i know, but something to think about.

pex said...

if you wanna make a bogus argument like buying a car, then why not make an argument like picking between 2 different jobs, both you would pretty much be doing the same thing, but one is in houston for 150k and the other is in va beach for 100k. sounds like a tough decision to me, which it probably was for kaka.

i just dont like the argument that 100m is enough so just stop there. maybe if im making that much money i want all my friends and family to live nice too, that money is gonna go fast when im buying everyone multi million dollar homes. i'll add more if needed have lab in a minute

pex said...

and like boon is saying, they were offering and buying other good players too. with no limit to their cash they could probably flesh out a pretty nice roster and coach. maybe man city will be the next big thing. you may be thinking that this model could never work, but i think something like that really could. just because they are throwing tons of money around doesnt mean they wont care for their players and team

Poorman said...

For me, the va beach/houston example would not be a tough decision at all. If you offered me 2 identical jobs, one in a place i didnt want to live but make 150mil, and one where I did want to live for 100mil, I would without hesitation pick the 100mil job. Obviously others differ, but the question posed in the original post was "what would i do".

obviously people apparently have much different spending tendencies than me tho. i thought latrell spreewell was a clown when he said he needed more than his 45mil to "feed his kids", but apparently others reading here may agree with him.

i agree with the argument that man city MIGHT get better with the new ownership spending money like water, but from what im hearing (i dont follow epl so ill yield to bosk and term on this) it wont be anytime soon. im not sure if massive spending is necessarily a guarantee to get better in soccer like it would be in other sports, but i guess only time will tell

booncakes said...

100 million dollars is a lot of money, but doesn't take away from the fact you'd be declining an extra 50% to your total. Prime would you take $500 million in vb or $750 million in houston? bigger numbers but same principle....by your standards you would stay in vb which is just crazy imo

pex said...

not to mention i changed the figures to 150k not 150m. idk if you already noticed that, but i think it makes a huge difference, especially with your 100m plus policy

Staboski said...

What Nate said about Man City trying to build the club into a powerhouse well that is what they are trying to do. This was done a couple of years ago when Russian illionaire Roman Abrovamich (sp?) purchased Chelsea. He bought the best players and got the best coach. They were a bottom level team and within a 2 years they were EPL champs. But money can only purchase good players and good coaches. You still need the team to gel and if you see Chelsea over the past few years they have lost the plot because everyone is more for a whats best for me idea. When you look at clubs with far less money but work well as a team (ex. Aston Villa and Wigan) to me its a better feeling.

term said...

The Houston analogy is bogus if you are actually talking about the decision I actually made. First of all, I like Houston. Second of all, I like Exxon more than any other job that is available in Virginia Beach, not to mention I can get to Fairfax through Exxon if I please.

And the phrase of "pretty much doing the same thing" is not quite right. The culture of a work environment can make or break an employment. It isn't just the job title.

We really can't sit here and argue about Kaka because we don't know how happy he really is currently and how unhappy he would be there. I am not the person to say that money does have a part of my happiness level, but to say that you would sacrifice your daily happiness for money, you must seriously hate your current life.

And don't call my analogy bogus without a reason why it is bogus.

pex said...

your analogy was an example pulled out of thin air that in my opinion really has no similarities to 100 vs 150m dollar salary.

i also made no mention of your job in any way. i simply used houston b/c it was the first city to pop into my head. my analogy was also meant to reflect yours in its outrageousness, although in the end it turned out to be pretty solid imo

pex said...

btw "pretty much the same thing" was stated for a reason. we're taking a hypothetical job that is the same in 2 places, which leaves the decision up to weighing the pros and cons of 50% more money vs the lifestyle changes of moving to a new city

term said...

The original 7 replies to the posts primarily talked about the percentage difference between the two salaries, hence why at the bottom of my post I stated that it was a direct analogy to the % difference argument, not raw amount. Glad to see you read the post.

We aren't talking about just moving cities with Kaka, we are talking about a completely new club with new coaches, management, teammates, fans, etc. It is not the same as the same job in a different city.

And if you are saying that the comparison to me is 'pretty solid,' you know less about how happy I am here compared to Virginia than you think. I hope I misread the context of that statement.

pex said...

reading comprehension ftl i guess? i never said it was bogus because it doesnt refer to the actual money. it was bogus because it was a bad analogy.

you're comparing a sporty luxury car to hybrid, like you said originally some people might not like the analogy.

i think if youre talking about cars it would make more sense to compare something like an 00 civic si to an 00 acura gsr. the si has less power but is more affordable, but it also has a lot of potential and different style. which one you pick could be a tough decision depending on your taste and budget

also i fail to see how my analogy is bad for kaka? youre both moving to different cities. different bosses, co workers, friends, neighborhood, etc.

i also am not specifically saying that youd rather live in va beach, but really you would have to make this decision before you ever moved to houston, just like kaka has to make the decision before he moved to man city. if you had to make the decision to move from 100k in va beach to 150k in houston (having never lived there before) i think the decision would be tough

term said...

The car comparison was based on what I think of Man City. I really don't see the potential there so it isn't as close of a call as the car comparison you have.

And on that kind of comparison (va beach 100k to never lived in Houston 150k) you are right. In my specific situation, I knew what I was getting into. If it was a blind decision, much harder. I think Kaka has an idea what he would be getting into @ City.

booncakes said...

you guys are fagbots

Poorman said...

i will simply reply to boons question to me and stay away from pex and terms individual arguments:

"100 million dollars is a lot of money, but doesn't take away from the fact you'd be declining an extra 50% to your total. Prime would you take $500 million in vb or $750 million in houston? bigger numbers but same principle....by your standards you would stay in vb which is just crazy"


my answer to this question is even more easy then the original question. ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT i would take 500mil to stay in VB. My girlfriend, the vast majority of my friends, and my family are all in vb. And the bigger point as it pertains to this blog, I couldn't spend 100 million dollars to begin with, better yet 500 million dollars. So what would be the big deal with making 750mil over 500 mil, it wouldn't mean anything to me.

PS, The houston example i am responding to simply out of relevance t the blog, I am not bashing Houston...but since thats what people want to use as an example, I will just pretend vb is the place i want to work vs. houston where i wouldn't want to work...which fits the original kaka argument. but to answer nathans original question, i would no doubt take 500mil and work somewhere i was happy rather than take 750mil and work somewhere i hated. that extra 250 mil would be meaningless to me. but i do understand now that some people actually do value these extra earnings

Staboski said...

Just a FYI they've upped the bid now to 107 million pounds. They've also agreed to pay his father and agents an additional 32 million pounds if they can help get the deal pushed through.

Poorman said...

haha wow, offering money to his pops.....man city is going to look so bad if he turns all these offers down too cause it shows how much their organization much suck if people arent taking these ridiculous offers