There is more chance of Manchester City re-signing Bert Trautmann than
there is of them getting their hands on Kaka.
Yet everybody has an opinion on the blockbuster transfer
that wasn't, isn't and never will be.
Our own Paul Parker thinks it would be "damaging to the
club and to the wider game", and he is not alone.
The very idea of City paying a £100 million transfer fee
then another half a million quid a week in wages has sparked no end of moral
outrage.
How dare these foreigners come here with their billions of
pounds and spend them on one of the greatest and most entertaining footballers
in the world? It's disgusting.
Early Doors doesn't
really know what all the fuss is about, and thinks the general queasiness about
the sums of cash involved display a startling narrow-mindedness.
This money exists, whether City's
owners decide to spend it on footballers or not.
They could use it to buy a trip to the moon, stuff their
duvets with $100-dollar bills, or they could invest it into their
businesses and make more money.
It just so happens they want to use it to buy Kaka (pictured
in training, possibly being pursued by Satan). Does that make him a trinket? Maybe.
But has football ever really been any other way?
If people want to complain, they should lament an international
economic system that can make some people (well, men) unimaginably rich just
because they are born on top of a load of oil that doesn't
really belong to them.
Early Doors would like to see the Daily Star's Brian Woolnough attempt to
bring down global capitalism, or at least restructure the world's commodity markets.
But, barring an unlikely transformation into a latter-day
Leon Trotsky, that's not going to
happen. So it is much easier to restrict your world view to football and whine that a
salary of £500,000-a-week is excessive, crass and deeply immoral.
For anyone who doesn't
start their newspaper at the back and stop as soon as they get to the racing,
the idea that some people are paid unconscionable amounts of money is not
exactly new.
Well, OK, Early Doors doesn't exactly read the main section of
papers as such, but it gets some penetrating daily insight from News in Briefs
('Peta, 21, from Essex, is excited
to hear that NASA has evidence of life on Mars. She said: "I always
wondered if there was something else out there and the discovery of methane on
the planet is a significant find."').
If somebody is going to get paid £25m a year, Early Doors
would rather it were Kaka than some spivvy hedge fund manager who gets rich off
the misery of others.
Although if Kaka is ever let loose on Titus Bramble, he may
be doing precisely the same thing.
ED knows its place, realises it cannot change the world and
thus takes a fatalistic view.
Basically, the world is going to hell - we should at least
be able to watch some quality footballers in action as it does so.
Would it be good to have Kaka playing in the Premier League?
Yes. If somebody is willing to shell out about £150m to make it happen,
so much the better.
- - -
As the ruddy-cheeked, straggly-haired image of Joe Kinnear
came on to Early Doors's TV screen
yesterday afternoon, it struck ED that the Newcastle manager would make an
excellent tramp.
As well as the looks, Kinnear has got the right vocabulary
and he's always going on about how
he hasn't got any money.
On the downside, he doesn't
drink and eats a carefully-monitored diet following heart problems several years
ago.
But Kinnear is a belligerent so-and-so, and is in line for
yet more earache from the FA after rowing with Hull boss Phil Brown during last night's Cup tie at St James'
Park.
Kinnear expressed bemusement after the pair were sent to the
stands by referee Phil Dowd, insisting: "We just exchanged words, nothing
else."
The problem was, those words were f***, c*** and w*****, and
the managers bellowed them into each other's
faces while pressing foreheads together.
And Kinnear's
assertion that they exchanged nothing but words is questionable, since those
words were accompanied by a copious amount of spittle.
If you're
wondering (and you almost certainly aren't),
here are ED's top and bottom three
most convincing tramps from among the Premier League managers.
EARLY DOORS'S TOP TRAMPS!
Best
1- Joe Kinnear
2- Ricky Sbragia
3- Alex Ferguson
Worst
1- Arsene Wenger (too urbane)
2- Phil Brown (too tanned)
3- Roy Hodgson (too avuncular)
- - -
STATE OF MIND OF THE DAY: 'Happy as Larry'
- Ray Wilkins's description of Big
Phil Scolari after Chelsea's 4-1 win at Southend.
HOSPITALISATION OF THE DAY: Rafa Benitez, who has undergone another operation,
although ED doesn't know whether it is to
treat his kidney stones or to remove his foot from his mouth.
FOREIGN VIEW: Gazzetta dello Sport's headline this morning: 'Kaka: "Resto." ma...' Which translates roughly as: 'Global apocalypse averted. For now.'
COMING UP: No live football today, although you may be interested in our live
Masters snooker and Dakar Rally coverage. No? Suit yourselves.