Well, I'm biased on this issue only because it involves my favorite player Robinho. First, I was surprised like everyone else when they signed him because I thought Chelsea was gonna sign him. I really excited for him to play with Deco and Essien and for Scolari. But having said that Man City was one of the places I wanted him to go. Man City already has Robinho's Santos day teammate Elano. Shawn Wright Phillips is back with them and also Petrov is there too. I really like the idea of three of them playing together. Supposedly they are also targeting Berbatov from Tottemham. I can live with those four up front.
As far as Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Buffon goes I don't think they are worth that much money in football sense but Beckham is worth $250 mil, so I guess it's all relative. I think though I can put together an entire Champs League winning team with no more than $150 mil at most though, he he.
As far as foreign investments in EPL goes, all other top teams in EPL, Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal are owned by foreigners. Perhaps it's the Arabian part that bother some people more than others perhaps.
But having said that, the article posted by Kaysaar mentions their plan of attaining 18 players each worth $30 mil. First thought that came to my mind, they are gonna have seven players worth $30 mil sitting on the bench. I just don't see that happening. But even if they spend just a half of that money it will affect the market for sure. It reminds me of when Abramovich bought Chelsea. I give much credit to Mourinho though. It's not as easy to put together a group of superstars and make them work together.
As far as the disparity the rich elite clubs and the smaller clubs, I don't know if there is a solution for it except some sort of salary cap or revunue sharing like the pro sports leagues in U.S. Of course, I am a sucker for the underdogs and I want to see the fans from small markets to be able to celebrate championships. But if I lived in London, Manchester, Barcelona, Madrid, Milan or Munich, of coursr I would want them to be able to spend as much as they can. One thing bothers me though is that when they spend so much money to improve their marketing value more than making a better team, ie Beckham.
As for Man City, first of all, I want them play 'the beautiful game'. I want that for every team but especially for the one that Robinho plays. I believe they will with the squad they have right now, but what will that get you? Will they able to break into top four with current squad? Only if one of the top four is to have a very bad season.