Irony is Not a Word to Play

One day David Beckham will read back to himself all the stupid things he’s ever said and realise that he must use that clever piece of anatomy known as a brain more often before allowing his mouth to flap open. His latest offering is this prime slice of unwhitting self-parody, knowledgably responding to the ongoing Kaka saga: “It’s not always about money. It’s about playing for the best team, playing with the best players in the world and winning trophies and being successful.”

Sensible advice from D. Beck there who is currently luxuriating in a five-year £125m contract at an American club that limped to a second from bottom finish in the MLS last season. When he isn’t helping his wife buy handbags made from crocodile eyelashes or whatever, Beckham can be found opening shopping ‘malls’ and youth development centres around LA, really pressing to “win trophies.” Saying that however, Beckham does get to hang out with Tom Cruise and Snoop Dogg on a regular basis, so that’s kind of part of “being successful.”

For Kaka, money is not everything

I don’t know about you, but that sentence warms my heart in the ice cold greedy cynicism of the modern game. Obviously in high profile cases like this it’s hard to separate to media spin from the truth, but regardless, Milan and Manchester have basically been circuses the last fortnight, with tales of arguments, agreements and shifting loyalties almost daily. Today though, the deal is officially off, and more than anything, I for one am relieved. I genuinely feel that had Kaka taken the money and gone to Eastlands then, on some level, my love of football would’ve died too. You see, it's hard to articulate, but personally Kaka is so much more than just one of the greatest talents of the modern era. His attitude, his commitment, his desire to be a winner represents football in its purest and most passionate sense, and had he turned his back on that pretty unique sense of class, then it would mean that everyone truly has their price, and world club football all starts to look fairly meaningless.

Anyway, Italian Prime Minister and Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi explained the Brazilian superstar had decided to snub the £243million deal himself: “It was Kaka who decided to stay. He didn’t even want to listen to the offer, which I believe was very big for him. He chose to stay at this club because he thinks it’s the best club in the world.” This came just hours after hundreds of fans besieged the headquarters of the Italian giants to voice their anger about the possible sale of their idol, and the hardcore fan firm known as the tifosi even held a vigil outside the star’s home.

Berlusconi added: “He is loved by everyone. He was touched by the love of the fans and was moved by his team-mates and all the staff. He has accepted to stay with the contract he has and will not ask for more money. He has confirmed he doesn’t want a penny more, because money is not everything in life. In these last few days he has understood there are more important things than money. We are proud to have such a champion, who is a great player on the pitch but also a big man outside. He refused an offer I believe would have doubled what he earns with us.” After Berlusconi announced the breakdown of talks live on Sky Italia TV, the Brazilian went out on to his flat’s balcony to greet hundreds of fans celebrating the news outside his home. The club president added: “He’s a very spiritual lad and that was what led to his decision, which one has to admire. You can’t refuse a lad who has five or six good years left the chance to create a fortune that will last the rest of his life. So we gave him the opportunity to evaluate their offer. But he didn’t even want to meet the club, because he has higher values. I hope we’ll carry on having success — and with Kaka, everything is possible.”

Kaka himself offered a statement late last night, admitting: “I did what my heart told me to do. At the end what counted was my history, where my ties are and where my heart really lies. I was moved by what fans showed me. I am really happy at this club. All the messages I received meant so much and forced me to choose with my heart. Going to Manchester City could have been a great project but I have prayed a lot in the last few days, looking to understand which was the right team for me and in the end I decided to stay here.”

Ok so this all might seem like a bit of an uncharacteristic circle-jerk for STT, but occasionally when the true balance of this game we all love is threatened, you have to put sarcastic rhetoric and irreverence aside. In a very real sense this transfer could have been the beginning of the end, even more so than the early Abramovich days at Chelsea, and to have a player personally put a stop to it and make a stand against money in favour of club loyalty is actually pretty moving. I’m not sure there are many other players out there that I could actually say this about, but more than anything else, I respect Kaka.

The Million Dollar Man, well, Million Pound Man actually

There are very few more obvious statements you can make about football these days than ‘the players get paid too much.’ When painfully average Championship level bench-warmers get paid more in a month than 90% of the population earn in a year, you know something is wrong with the country. Anyway, soap-boxing aside, according to The Observer we are on the brink of passing yet another wage mile-stone, with reports leaking out of West London that Chelsea are prepared to offer Brazilian divinity Kaka’ the princely sum of £1million-a-month to join them from AC Milan.

Just when you thought the saga was over, press speculation has picked up again over the weekend, after last week reports of a €100m offer for the midfielder were laughed off by Stamford Bridge insiders. So-called ‘transfer guru’ Adriano Galliani confirmed that he and Milan had rejected a “conspicuous” offer from Chelsea but wouldn’t reveal a figure, before adding that Kaka was not for sale at any price. However, chatter persisted, and rumours of a €150m and then a €200m offer further circulated mysteriously, while both Galliani and Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon denied all knowledge.

If this £1m-a-month offer is to believed then this would make the 26-year-old the first player in footballing history to earn this amount, topping his current salary which is already the highest in the world at the moment. “Kaka's contract gives him €9million in its first season, and rises by a million euros for each of its five years,” a Milan source explained. “To better that, Chelsea will have to begin at more than £200,000 a week.” It seems then that the speculation surrounding Chelsea and Kaka just will not go away, but is there any way this mess can get cleared up in the next three weeks before the season starts?

If insider conjecture is to be believed then Kaka’ has fallen out with new toast-of-the-town Ronaldinho, but would he ever leave Milan and want to ply his art in this country? And that’s the point I think; the way Kaka’ plays is as close to art as football can get, gliding mercurially around and making it just look like the easiest thing in the world. Would he ever want to risk essentially his whole career by lining up against the limited-skill defences of the Premier League, where certainly outside the top 6 or so, the mantra is very much pure physical intimidation?

So is he worth it? Would Chelsea finally be able to capture the Champions League crown with him in their side? Are we being too harsh on Premier League defenders? Tell us what you think in the handy comments box below…

C.R.E.A.M (dollar dollar bill y’all)

Thanks to our good friends The Offside for the heads up on this one, as just recently a Portuguese finance website bizarrely was able to publish the following salary information for the 50 Best Paid Footballers in the world. Now this is based purely on actual playing salary so the ridiculous endorsement cash that David Beckham sees for holding everything from slippers to date rape kits (or rather anti-date rape kits?) on American TV doesn’t come into the equation here.

So I guess the top 2 aren’t a great shock really. For the best part of 5 years now the pair have dominated the European game, winning the Champions League for their respective clubs and drawing extravagant fanaticism throughout the world. A comment on an affiliate forum suggested that Kaka’s annual salary was actually more than the GDP of the whole of New York City, but since I don’t really know what that means, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. As for the rest, well see for yourself…

1. Ricardo Kaka (AC Milan) €9 million
2. Ronaldinho Gaucho (FC Barcelona) €8.52 million

3. Frank Lampard (Chelsea FC) €8.16 million
4. John Terry (Chelsea FC) €8.16 million
5. Fernando Torres (Liverpool FC) €7.92 million
6. Andriy Shevchenko (Chelsea FC) €7.8 million
7. Michael Ballack (Chelsea FC) €7.8 million
8. Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester Utd) €7.68 million
9. Thierry Henry (FC Barcelona) €7.68 million
10. Steven Gerrard (Liverpool FC) €7.68 million
11. Didier Drogba (Chelsea FC) €7.38 million
12. Wayne Rooney (Manchester Utd) €7.32 million
13. Iker Casillas (CF Real Madrid) €7.2 million
14. Michael Owen (Newcastle Utd) €6.72 million
15. Sol Campbell (Portsmouth) €6.6 million
16. Raul Gonzalez (CF Real Madrid) €6.42 million
17. Ruud Van Nistelrooy (CF Real Madrid) €6.42 million
18. Rio Ferdinand (Manchester Utd) €6.06 million
19. Darren Bent (Tottenham Hotspur) €5.94 million

20. Carlos Tevez (Manchester Utd) €5.88 million
21. Fabio Cannavaro (CF Real Madrid) €5.88 million
22. Luca Toni (Bayern Munich) €5.52 million
23. Robinho (CF Real Madrid) €5.52 million
24. Francesco Totti (AS Roma) €5.46 million
25. Arjen Robben (CF Real Madrid) €5.34 million
26. Ryan Giggs (Manchester Utd) €5.22 million
27. Michael Essien (Chelsea FC) €5.04 million
28. Adriano Lima (Internazionale) €5.004 million
29. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Internazionale) €5.004 million
30. Patrick Vieira (Internazionale) €5.004 million
31. Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus FC) €5.004 million
32. Samuel Eto’o (FC Barcelona) €5.004 million
33. Carles Puyol (FC Barcelona) €5.004 million
34. Sergio Aguero (Atletico Madrid) €5.004 million
35. Oliver Kahn (Bayern Munich) €4.944 million
36. Edwin Van der Sar (Manchester Utd) €4.86 million
37. Fernando Morientes (Valência) €4.86 million
38. Alessandro Del Piero (Juventus FC) €4.8 million
39. Harry Kewell (Liverpool FC) €4.8 million

40. Djibril Cisse (O.Marseille) €4.8 million
41. Joe Cole (Chelsea FC) €4.68 million
42. Pedro Pauleta (Paris SG) €4.608 million
43. Juninho Pernanbucano (O.Lyon) €4.56 million
44. David Beckham (LA Galaxy) €4.5 million
45. David Trezeguet (Juventus FC) €4.5 million
46. Sidney Govou (O.Lyon) €4.5 million
47. Deco (FC Barcelona) €4.5 million
48. Gianluca Zambrotta (FC Barcelona) €4.5 million
49. Petr Cech (Chelsea FC) €4.32 million
50. Antonio Cassano (Sampdoria) €4.2 million

Observations then. A staggering 26 of the 50 listed play for just four clubs – Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United – with Chelsea perhaps unsurprisingly being the most represented with 8 players in this bracket; some worth it (Terry, Ballack, Drogba, Essien, Cech) and some blatently not (Lampard, Shevchenko, Cole). Most of the usual suspects are catered for in a pretty decent hierarchical order actually, so as you’d expect, the likes of Ronaldo, Torres, Rooney, Henry and Raul are all up there with the big boys too.

What’s more interesting are those missing however. There are no Dutch or Portuguese based players at all, and aside from Bayern Munich, no other German sides are represented either. The likes of Diego, van der Vaart, Pudowski and Riberry will therefore probably be clamoring for a new agent and deal soon then having seen these stats. What links these three countries however is the unique, and also admirable, tendency to promote performance-based pay, with Bundesliga clubs especially fond of drawing up contracts with low base salaries, but with astronomical playing bonuses based on impact and all-round performance. One wonders how this might effect certain huge egos in the Premier League, who seem perfectly content to play to their full potential long enough to earn a massive payday, and then just relax, doing literally nothing to the end of their contracts. Nikolas Anelka springs to mind. Finally, a quick hats off to Arsene Wenger as not a single Arsenal player appears on this list, proving once and for all that it’s quality not quantity that matters at the very top level. Without nowhere near the outgoing spending of their English (or European for that matter) rivals, they have achieved just as much and are able to play without doubt better football than anyone in the country apart from Manchester United.

On a smaller scale, it’s a little strange to find a certain Argentinian chap called Lionel Messi conspicuously absent, especially given the outrageous buy-out clause Barcelona have in his contract. As perhaps the two most ridiculous inclusions, Harry Kewell and Darren Bent must be absolutely pissing themselves this week, as they have literally done nothing all year and still banked well over £3 million each. Michael Owen and Sol Campbell too seem unusually high as well, proof that the football money men clearly have rose-tinted memories. Based on salary then, all of these guys are worth more than Messi, so STT would like to advise Spurs especially to contact Barcelona with a swap-deal on the table and see what kind of response they get.

To give these totals a little perspective however, our American correspondent has chimed in with a few comparative figures of the best paid basketballer, baseballer and American footballer. Prepare to feel somewhat sick. Currently NBA all-time great Kevin Garnett, now of the Boston Celtics, is on a cool €16.3 million; Yankee record breaking hitter Alex Roridguez is the highest paid MLB player on a modest €17.8 million; and top of the tree is NFL defensive-line man mountain Dwight Freeney, of the Indianapolis Colts, who last year made a mind-boggling €19.9 million. To better these salaries you have to look at the individual sports, so we won’t really count them here. For the record though, Tiger Woods is estimated to rake in almost €70 million a year (including endorsements though), while the top Formula 1 drivers similarly can bag up €50 million a year through salary and team sponsorship.

Moral of the story here then is if you ever make it as a professional footballer, try to get Kewell or Bent’s agent, they must be real bad-asses to convince Liverpool and Tottenham their clients are worth that kind of cheese. I heard they can regularly be found either selling ice to Eskimos, water to whales, or semen to Britney Spears.

Kaka is the European Footballer of the Year. But what about Christiano?

Brazil and Milan midfielder Kaka won the Balloon D'Or today, beating Christiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi into second and third places respectively. The prestigious award was won by Fabio Cannavaro last year and buck-toothed genius Ronaldinho took home the statue the year before.

This year's recipient is, like last year's, not quite as deserving as some of the previous winners. When Ronaldinho won it two years ago, he was hands down the best player in the world, as was Zizou in 1998. Kaka's stock has risen dramatically in the past few seasons, but anyone who has seen his recent performances for Milan will question whether or not he performs to a world-class level week in, week out. Maybe the downturn in form is due to opposition managers deciding to man mark him, or the absence of Clarence Seedorf for much of the season, who so often provides Kaka with a safety valve when Milan go forward. The last 3 times that I have seen him play, he has shown touches of what he can do, with deft flicks and touches, but none of the explosive driving forward runs that we know he is capable of.

However, the award (now also known as the World Player of the Year, thanks to the contribution of journalists around the world for the first time) is judged over the course of a footballing year, rather than on recent performance. Kaka ran the show for Milan, as they won last year's Champions League with some inspiring performances over the likes of Bayern in the quarters and Manchester United in the semis, then doing it the old fashioned way against Liverpool in the final. In this competition, Kaka led the scoring with 10 goals, 2 ahead of the biggest goal machine on Merseyside - Peter Crouch. See all of his 10 goals here:



The competiton between Kaka and Christiano is a fascinating one, as Kaka appears to be at the peak of his powers at 25, while Christiano has just broken through puberty, developing into a complete player in the past 18 months. It has to be remembered that young Christiano is a wee pup of a lad of 22 years and may be even better by the time he is 25. When the two sides met in the semis last year and played out what was to be a thrilling 3-2 victory for United, there were many comparisons between Ronaldo and Kaka. None were more flowery and lah-di-dah than the Guardian's Richard Williams:

He and Kaka are the sort of players who prompt comparisons with other forms of art. Music, most obviously. Ronaldo's mode is allegro molto vivace, with a pronounced fondness for bursts of staccato phrasing via those quick-stepping feet, his unorthodoxy extending to the fearless introduction of techniques that others might unveil only in rehearsal, for the amusement of their colleagues. Kaka plays at a permanent andante cantabile, with a sweetly flowing grace, his devastating sprint a thing of seemingly unhurried beauty, his body swaying as one change of direction blends seamlessly into another.

As much as STT hates Latin, this is a fantastic way to sum up both players. Ronaldo is indeed more staccato, with jitterbug flicks and stepovers, while Kaka plays with a sweeping force, as he seems to run more comfortably with the ball at his feet than without. While the differing styles split advocates and detractors, they have little bearing on goals, as both players have very similar goalscoring records for club and country, both averaging a goal every 3 and a bit games. In terms of what other creative talents they bring to their teams, both play in midfields packed with talent, so others can make up for their lack of flair on any given day. It is Ronaldo who is more important to his club, however, as he is irreplaceable in a team that still fields the likes of Darren Fletcher and John O'Shea, whereas Kaka has not even been the most influential midfielder at the San Siro this season. That award goes to Andrea Pirlo, who is in possession of the world's most fabulous Roman nose:


So, who deserves this award more? Kaka was the standout player in the Champion's League, the most prestigious competition since the World Cup, so he's the safe choice. He needs to put in some stunning performances for Milan in Serie A and the Champions League knockout stages. If not, it will be surprising if he wins in next year. One day, it will be Ronaldo earning the plaudits, not to mention Lionel Messi, or a certain Andrea Pirlo.