10 Reasons Kaka Was RIGHT to Turn Down £500k A Week

Kaka’s proposed transfer from AC Milan to Manchester City surprisingly ended on Monday night when both clubs claimed to have pulled out of the deal. Both parties moved quickly to save face and Milan’s chairman Silvio Berlusconi claimed that it was Kaka himself who rejected the move. Despite the massive amount of money offered to him, here are 10 reasons why he was right not to join his pal Robinho at City.

10. Too Much Pressure

When David Bentley moved to Spurs for £15 million this past Summer there was a lot of pressure on him to take the club to the next level. Imagine the kind of pressure there would be on Kaka carrying a £107 million price-tag on his back. Replicating his Milan form would not be enough. Every goal that he scored without having first dribbled past twelve players (the entire opposing team plus one of his own for the fun of it) will be derided as simply not good enough. Oh, and he is expected to play the main role in transforming this team who convincingly lost to West Brom into world-beaters.

9. Kaka’s Ambition

Kaka has already won a Serie A title, the Italian Super Cup and a Champions League medal with AC Milan, along with a surfeit of individual honours, but it is unlikely that he will be satisfied, looking back on his career, with only one league title, one domestic cup and one European title. Although the long-term aim of the Manchester City project is to be a club regularly challenging for major honours, that, if ever, won’t be realised for several more years. At Milan he still has an outside chance of another league title this year and his club are strong favourites to life the UEFA Cup in May. Next year they will be expected to revert to type and challenge strongly for the Serie A title and the Champion’s League.

8. Alternatives to Manchester City

It was reported that Real Madrid launched a late bid and that in spite of their incapacity to compete with the personal terms that City were offering, they still managed to turn his head. David Beckham today claimed that Kaka will sign for Madrid in the Summer. Robinho once claimed that Kaka had wanted to sign for them back when he was there. If the time truly has come for him to leave the San Siro he is hardly short of options.

7. The Dreaded January Move

Realistically Manchester City will win nothing this year. Meanwhile, Milan could yet collect a double and on top of this Manchester City face a tough battle with relegation. Even if Kaka did want to move to the Eastlands it would make more sense to do so in the Summer. That way he could collect some more honours before he left and – assuming City aren’t relegated – start a fresh season with slightly less pressure on the team and having had considerable time to get accustomed to the English game.

6. Ilaria D’Amico

“Hey Kaka, you get to hang out with Ilaria D’Amico every week, as you please, but how would you like to swap that with talking to Chris Kamara and the assorted legion of the damned that work for the BBC instead? No? Seriously? Weird.”

5. His Age

If Kaka was younger then he might have been more easily seduced. As it is he is 26 and at the age most people generally accept to be the peak of an athlete’s sporting prowess. Ideally, most footballers wouldn’t want to spend this time as a cog in an experiment as to the power of money in the modern football game, but rather playing the highest level football with an established team. While Kaka may at some point be given the opportunity to win the Champion’s League with Manchester City if that ever happens it very likely will be after years of team-building and when Kaka is no longer at his peak. Surely then he would enjoy the prospect of playing in a final in these coming years much more.

4. The “Mercenary” Tag

Kaka might well move to Manchester City because he believes in the project that is being put together but it will never be looked at that way. Everyone will assume that he left Milan purely for the enormous financial package. Kaka once said that when he was twelve he learned that “it is faith that decides whether something will happen or not.” He married his high-school sweetheart, and upon winning both the World Cup and the Champions League he lifted up his jersey to show a t-shirt that said “I Belong to Jesus”. Money has never been a major factor in Kaka’s career and so it might be difficult for him to suddenly have to deal with that negative reputation.

3. Milan/Ancelotti or Nostalgia

It is always difficult for players to leave the clubs where they made a home for themselves and whose fans adore you. Likewise it must be difficult to leave the coach who navigated at nurtured your career through those times. With his coach at Milan, Carlo Ancelotti having been linked with Roma and lately with the Italian national side it is unlikely that he would follow Kaka to Manchester City. The fans organised demonstrations before and after the recent game with Fiorentina; it must be hard for him to leave all of those elements behind.

2. There May Well Be No Way Out…

There is a fear that once Kaka signs a contract with Manchester City that he will be forced to see out the length of that contract in spite of how disillusioned he becomes there. While every other club has the responsibility of being run as a company City do not. Manchester United threatened last summer to let Ronaldo rot in the reserves after his claiming his desire to join Real Madrid but it was really never an option as it would represent a tremendous waste of money. With money not an option for City, they could plausibly allow Kaka to rot.

1. Oh To Be World Player Of The Year Again

Kaka won the FIFA World Player of the Year Award in 2007 and he surely must want to win it again. Of those players likely to be competing for the Award over the next few years, he is the oldest (Ronaldo; 23, Messi; 21, Torres; 24) and to be playing for a team not immediately playing in the top competitions would render his bid to win the award essentially impossible. Historically the winner of the World Player of the Year Award has been a player playing for the team that won the Champion’s League title and there is serious doubt as to whether Manchester City will be able to win that particular honour, particularly within Kaka’s playing career.