City offer Fernando Torres £200,000 a week

With Manchester City’s weary troops already complaining that they need reinforcements, the club’s Arab owners are set to oblige with another cheeky offer for Liverpool striker Fernando Torres. The Mirror reports that City would happily make the Spaniard the Premier League’s best paid player on a nice little weekly pay packet of £200,000.

As unlikely as that seems - Torres himself has reportedly made it clear to City that he is happy at Anfield - it could prove to be a very good piece of business if City did pull it off. All the talk this week has been about a Premier League salary cap. So convince the best striker in the league to sign a £200,000 a week deal and turn around a few months later and tell him he is on £50,000 a week. “Sorry, Nando, the salary cap has come into effect. Nothing we can do.”

Talk of an incoming salary cap could actually drive wages up in the short-term. That’s irony, folks.

Kerrrazy billionaire to be sidelined in takeover deal

Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim - the perma-grinning Arab executive who stars in the UAE’s version of The Apprentice - is set to take a backseat in the Manchester City negotiations once due diligence is completed next Monday. From then on, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan and his trillion dollar family wealth will take charge:

Sheikh Mansour bin Zahed [sic] Al Nahyan, the son of the founding president of the United Arab Emirates and a senior member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, is the real power behind City’s new owners and he is planning to take an increasingly high-profile role once Ramadan finishes later this month.

It is said that the Sheikh could take a more ‘measured approach’ to running things at Eastlands, so Al-Fahim’s dream of seeing every attacking player under the sun in a sky blue shirt may never materialise.

Spoiler FYI: Political asylum seeker Dr Thaksin Shinawatra received his doctorate in criminal justice. Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim’s PhD is nowhere near as ironic - his qualification is in Real Estate investment.

YouTube spoofers take four days to react to club takeover

The man speaking appears to be Indian and of absolutely no resemblance to Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim, but we won’t let that get in the way of a good time.

Be afraid Europe, these guys will KILL you

Arab owner happy to pay any amount for 32-year-old striker

According to Spanish rag Marca, one of the gazillion forwards on Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim’s wishlist was Ruud van Nistelrooy. Before closing the Brazilian man-o’-sex deal, City representatives asked how much the Dutchman would cost, but were told by Los Blancos that he was definitely not for sale. The Manchester club, evidently drunk on their newfound wealth, responded by offering a cheque on which Ramon Calderon and co could put an amount they considered appropriate. Madrid still said no, but the temptation to charge £100bn must have been mighty tempting…

Forty per cent of the top flight now owned by overseas investors

For a team like Chelsea, foreign investment has proven the difference between success and slightly more success, but not every club benefits. Now that Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim (pictured above with a Hollywood star and her grandson) has waded in with daddy’s oil cash, eight current Premier League clubs are owned by out-of-towners. Accordingly, The Spoiler has looked at the fortunes of each of foreign-owned club to find out if overseas money has helped or hindered the league…

Aston Villa
Owner: Randy Lerner

So far everything seems great. Martin O’Neill and Lerner get on well, money is readily being made available to sign players and Lerner was willing to support whatever action his manager chose to take in the Gareth Barry saga. Other factors that make Aston Villa an attractive model to follow are that they target English talent and although they occasionally pay over the odds, there isn’t the “we must finish in the top four or else sack the manager” mentality.

Chelsea
Owner: Roman Abramovich

Abramovich had an advantage over the likes of Lerner in that the club he bought were already a top four team, however, he still delivered a title in his second season. Wikipedia claim that “as of May 2008, Abramovich has spent approximately £600 million on the club since arriving in 2003.” Things have taken a turn