Soccer: Arabs and Brazilians Just Another Week for Manchester City

What a week for Manchester City. Taken over by the Abu Dhabi United Group for Development and Investment (ADUG). Manchester City is now owned by one of the planets richest men. They immediately stated their intentions by bidding £30 million for Dimitar Berbatov who ended up joining rivals Manchester United and then signing Robinho from Real Madrid for £32 million snatching him from under the noses of Chelsea.

A great week to be City fan, who will all be dreaming that this is the beginning of big things for there club. Though as Chelsea, Liverpool, West Ham and Newcastle have all found to their cost a rich high profile owner can bring a whole host of new problems.

Last year Roman Abramovich at Chelsea’s was accused of meddling in team affairs and sacking Chelsea’s most successful manager and replacing him with his allay Avram Grant. Rafa Benitez has already fallen out with Liverpool’s American owners on a number of occasions, recently regarding Benitez’s pursuit of Aston villa midfielder Gareth Barry.

Kevin Keegan walked out at Newcastle because of Owner Mike Ashley’s meddling in team affairs. This two days after West Ham manager Alan Curbishley walked for the same reason.

So how will Mark Hughes cope with this new found wealth and extra pressure? Hughes was a no nonsense player and as a manager he is already carving a good reputation having done good jobs with the Welsh national team and Blackburn Rovers.

I cannot imagine for one minute that Hughes will accept the Arab owners interfering with team matters and I am sure he will stand up to them if they do.

However while Manchester City were splashing the cash on Monday Mark Hughes spent all day playing golf. So there is still the question over whether Hughes sanctioned these signings or the new owners are intent on trying to build an English version of galaticos.

The next year is going to be very interesting at Eastland’s and whether Manchester City can break up the stranglehold that Chelsea and Manchester United have on the Premiership title race.

One thing’s for sure if Manchester City are involved it won’t be dull.