Manchester City Purchased By Arabian Billionaire

As many of you probably already know, Manchester City was recently bought by Abu Dhabi billionaire Dr. Sulaiman Al-Fahim. While the sales and purchases of football clubs don't normally attract this much attention, there are rumblings in the football community surrounding the implications of this acquisition. Within days of the selloff, City broke the English transfer record by making Robinho the highest paid player on the island, and there have been constant rumors about the high-profile and expensive players the club is targetting. Dr. Al-Fahim has reportedly ear-marked one billion dollars ($1,000,000,000) solely for the acquisition of players, valuing Cristiano Ronaldo at $240 million, Kaka for another $200+ million, Juve keeper Buffon for anoth $100 million, with additional rumblings of bringing players like Lionel Messi, Cesc Fabregas and others. Regardless of how highly a club values a player, it will be difficult for them to fend off mega-bids like those, especially for young talent on smaller teams.

He has also reportedly given City manager Mark Hughes only three years to win the Champions League (mentioned in above link). Ambitious fellow this Dr. Al-Fahim.

Can the rest of the footballing community cope with such a huge influx of wealth? Smaller clubs are already hard pressed to compete with Europe's largest and wealthiest clubs (Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Manchester United etc.), and with Dr. Al-Fahim leading an ownership group of significantly greater wealth than even the traditional powers, what does this mean for football? Will the current world powers be willing to part with their best players for enormous amounts of money, at the displeasure of their fans?

So what do you folks think? Will Manchester City rise to the greatest heights of football, with the most dominating players in the world? Or will they collapse under the weight of having too many dominant players on the field? Will the world's top clubs freeze out Dr. Al-Fahim, refusing to give up their talent, regardless of the profit potential (although they say every man has his price...)? Will FIFA and UEFA try and flex their muscles should the situation get out of hand?

Discuss please!

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.