As an avid and passionate life long supporter of Manchester City football club and with strong ties to the media world, I have spent much of my time reading various articles published on City, Kaka, the Arab owners and the Premier League.
I had expected jealousy. I had expected negativity. What I hadn’t expected was the magnitude of the jealousy and negativity; the bitterness and borderline hatred towards this community club, a family club, our club.
I can’t fathom how such transfers as Manchester United signing a hot prospect at 17 years old, none which of us have ever heard of for £15m can elude the critics, while we sign the experienced Bellamy for £12m and we have inflated the market and ruined football.
Kaka has hit the headlines on a daily basis since the story of his record breaking transfer was leaked by Milan or Redknapp or whoever else is hoping for us to fall flat on our face.
Kaka is a footballing icon; he is to football what Marilyn Monroe is to the red carpet or Shakespeare to writing. Imagine getting Monroe to pose for your magazine or Shakespeare to write a series of novels for your publisher. One-hundred-million pounds, there is no doubt that it is a lot of money- but what price would you pay for one of the worlds best? £100m seems pretty fair to me.
To the media, bringing Kaka to the Premier League wasn’t a good thing, it wouldn’t make it better to watch or fathers and sons quiver at the sight of a football hero. It would ruin everything, Kaka moving to City was like ‘Hello’ magazine doing an exclusive Monroe photo shoot. The hypocritical chairman at various football clubs would tell them that the transfer was completely rediculous while slamming price tags as high as £15m on Wilson Palacios. According to the hacks and critics, this transfer would degrade and ruin football forever.
The deal falls through. With all those articles published and comments made about us ruining football, surely not signing him has now saved football? No, of course it hasnt. Manchester City ‘failed’, they couldn’t stand up to the big boys. The Telegraph wrote in their hateful article ‘Send in the Clowns’: ‘Manchester`s little-regarded other team is now a laughing-stock throughout the world’.
It is clear to see that no-one wants us to succeed. We are alone in all of this.
The sky four monopoly seems to be encouraged and supported by the press and it seems that the world agrees. With news that the FA is suddenly holding a meeting to discuss foreign owners, transfer and wage caps, it has transpired that Manchester City will not even be represented.
With the endless slaughter of Manchester City in the press I am sure a trip to Tenerife is a welcome break for the players. Meanwhile we suffering fans have to dodge the proverbial slander in every paper under the sun- including the Sun.
The bad press is here to stay and in recent weeks I have noticed a change in City fans. The egotistical aspirations of being too good for this player and that player have gone. It is time for the bickering to stop. It is time for City to get serious and for us to get behind Mark Hughes and the team. We are the fans with ‘Pride in Battle’, long suffering fans who will fight to the end. It is now the time to stand up and be counted, there is no more room for negativity at this club- unless you want to join the Telegraph.
So too has the mood changed in the changing rooms: ‘Because everything has gone crazy outside the camp it has pulled us all together,’ Richard Dunne stated on the club’s official website.
Hughes even said during the Kaka saga: ‘There’s a lot of negativity around what we do… We will use the negativity that has been used by others as a strength.’ And we will.
The tide has turned, the media attacks have brought us together not pulled us apart. We are stronger than ever.
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