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Perhaps the most amazing aspect of Kaka's mega-money move from AC Milan to Real Madrid, which became official on Monday, was that the transfer fee of around £59 million ($94 million U.S.) is a little less than half of a rumored price tag Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley put on the entire club at £100 million. Think about that for a second. Real Madrid and it's new club president Florentino Perez paid a lump sum for one player for an amount relatively close for a big club in England, albeit a club that just got relegated. If that doesn't put the insane amount of money shelled out by Madrid in check, what does?
Now, with a little time to digest the move and look past the price tag -- which obviously overshadows everything else -- let's try to sort out what this move means going forward.
Obviously for Madrid, the move is a signal of intent aimed at Barcelona and the rest of Europe. Perez wanted to make a splash, and clearly he did. The image of Kaka -- in an angelic full-white kit -- certainly must have Madrid fans dreaming of better times, filled with trophies.
What it will actually do to improve Real Madrid in La Liga remains to be seen. Kaka is an elite player, but will he close the gap behind Barca, especially if the Catalans add someone like Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Karim Benzema? Are huge-money transfers for star players the way to go instead of building a team organically, or at least with a sense of purpose?
And what does that mean for current Real players like Wesley Sneijder or Rafael van der Vaart? They'd appear like surplus parts at the Bernabeu and could easily move to a club like Bayern Munich, should the Bavarians offload Franck Ribery.
As for Kaka himself? From a sporting standpoint, it's hard to imagine he'll struggle with a move to Spain. The only question is if he'll have the talismanic value that he brought to Milan.
Tuesday he addressed some of the reasons why he turned down a move to Manchester City in January, pledging himself to Milan, only to change his mind a couple months later. For Kaka, the mega-money offered by Madrid was a way for him to help Milan, even if it was about half of the rumor deal offered by City.
It goes to show you that if a club like AC Milan, considered a top-10 side worldwide in terms of recognition, must sell off it's marquee player in order to stay solvent, well, it doesn't bode too strongly for the fiscal health of the game. You'd think Real Madrid and Milan are on about an even footing, but it's clearly not that way due to television revenues and in Milan's case, sharing a stadium.
Whatever the reason, the gap between the haves and have-nots will only continue to swell as the summer progresses.
In the big picture, that's what the Kaka move does. It sets the wheels in motion for all the big clubs in the world. And should Madrid pry Cristiano Ronaldo away from Manchester United, as Perez has stated he'll attempt, then all bets are off and the summer's tradionally "silly season" might get institutional-like crazy.
