When normal values simply don’t apply

THE prospect of Manchester City even considering signing Brazilian superstar Kaká (above) was an extremely exciting one.

You could just imagine it: one of the world’s top footballers lighting up Eastlands on a wet Tuesday night in February, running rings round the Blackpool defence to help City rack up a vital victory in the Championship. Not a bad gig for half a million quid a week.

Many people don’t like the fact that any footballer could earn such vast sums for kicking a leather ball round a park. They point to the doctors, police officers and teachers who can only dream of such wealth despite offering far more positive contributions to society.

But in the world of entertainment, normal values don’t apply.

Carol Voderman got £1million a year for juggling a few numbers on daytime telly. And her Cruyff turn isn’t up to much, I can tell you.

Keanu Reeves picked up 15million US dollars for sleepwalking through the final film in the Matrix trilogy. Yet he can’t trap a ball for toffee.

And City’s so-so left-back Wayne Bridge earns a whopping £95,000 every seven days — but wasn’t worth a starting place even in a defence as shaky as Chelsea’s.

Even the supposed fee of £108m can be looked upon favourably. If you add together the transfer values of the following footballing flops — Juan Sebastian Veron, Andriy Shevchenko, El Hadji Diouf, Francis Jeffers, Jean-Alain Boumsong, Khalid Boulahrouz and Peter Davenport — the total comes to around the same as City dangled in front of AC Milan.

With that in mind, Kaká’s value starts to look reasonable.



GREG BIRD will probably turn out to be a hit at Bradford Bulls.

The 24-year-old NRL star is undoubtedly a class act on the field. Off the pitch, however, it appears to be a very different story.

The Australian faces charges of reckless wounding, public mischief and making false accusations in late April, following an incident in which he allegedly smashed a glass into his girlfriend’s face and tried to pin it on his flat-mate. Lovely.

His club back home, Cronulla Sharks, sacked him last week.

Over here, Bradford weren’t the only club chasing Bird. Wigan, Warrington, Huddersfield and Wakefield were all interested too, with Wildcats coach John Kear estimating that “half of Super League” had made offers.

It makes you wonder exactly where the line is beyond which a level of behaviour is deemed unacceptable, or even if such a line exists at all in top-level rugby league — supposedly the ultimate family sport.

Comment? mattchambers@oldham-chronicle.co.uk