Kamikaze owners are distorting the transfer market

Sir Alex Ferguson

MANCHESTER, England - Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson believes that wealthy club owners' "kamikaze effort" to spend money have distorted the transfer market.

United have had another quiet summer of transfer dealings, with Chris Smalling, Javier Hernandez and Bebe arriving for a total of 25 million pounds ($40 million).

It follows last summer, when Ferguson spent a similar figure on bringing Antonio Valencia, Michael Owen and Gabriel Obertan to Old Trafford. He has insisted over the last 12 months that there is no value in the market.

During that time, Manchester City have continued to spend heavily in their pursuit of success. Last summer alone, Real Madrid bought Cristiano Ronaldo from United for 80 million pounds and also purchased Kaka.

Ferguson considered a move for Karim Benzema, only to be scared off by the 35 million Real Madrid paid for the Lyon striker last summer.

He was also strongly linked with moves for Franck Ribery and David Villa. With City hoping to follow up the deal for Mario Balotelli with a move for James Milner of Aston Villa, Ferguson thinks the transfer market is not about to calm down.

He said: "Over the last two or three years we have seen very wealthy owners become part of football clubs and therefore go on this kamikaze effort to spend their money,” said Ferguson.

"It is amazing the amounts of money that are being bandied about in the present day game.

"You may think it could be dangerous. But you think they have that kind of money and if they have it, they are certainly using it. I don't see it abating.

"The kind of spending we are seeing at the moment will be here for two or three years, until such time as they understand you can't necessarily achieve all the time by spending.

"We could have bought one or two players for a lot of money in the summer.

"But I didn't necessarily see that they were going to make much difference to us, or rather make the difference that makes us really so much better.

"Take away the money, the players we looked at maybe would not have done what Eric Cantona did for us for instance or Wayne Rooney or Ronaldo did for us.

"That is what I am talking about, making that quantum leap to another level."

Ferguson acknowledged that he will have to spend money to bring in more experienced players at some stage. But until then, he feels he will stick to his policy of signing youngsters.

He added: "It is one of the important policies at the club that we identify young players who can grow into the club and develop. We have always work on the age factor.”

AFP