Thaksin falls for Ronaldinho dummy in agents' game
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Thaksin Shinawatra's pursuit of Ronaldinho is heading towards a predictably unsatisfactory conclusion for Manchester City amid growing suspicions about the motives of the player's representatives. Sven-Goran Eriksson is among those who suspect Thaksin and his associates have fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the book.
Ronaldinho's brother and agent, Roberto de Assis Moreira, was at the City of Manchester Stadium last Saturday to see Eriksson's team play Chelsea. He was accompanied by Pini Zahavi, one of the more powerful agents in the business. Although Thaksin was in Thailand awaiting his corruption trial, the City owner sent a delegation to give Moreira and Zahavi the VIP treatment and discuss the possibility of Ronaldinho joining from Barcelona, with a weekly salary in excess of £100,000.
Thaksin, by his own admission, is new to football and learning about the way in which agents work. As such he still appeared to believe last night that there was a good chance of Ronaldinho accepting - even though Milan and several of Europe's leading clubs are also interested in a player who, despite being seen as in decline, is only 28.
As an experienced football man Eriksson has a more realistic view, namely that the chances of Ronaldinho wanting to join a club ninth in the Premier League are all but non-existent. His suspicion is that Ronaldinho's advisers intend to quote City's offer as a way of drumming up interest from other potential buyers, a list that potentially includes Chelsea. "After the game I met him [Moreira] and do you know where?" Eriksson asked pointedly. "He was outside the dressing room of Chelsea. What he was doing there I don't know."
His scepticism will not surprise City's supporters, most of whom always believed the link with Ronaldinho was too good to be true. Some fans thought the whole story had been concocted to improve season-ticket sales. Yet City, it emerged, were approached in January about Ronaldinho's availability. "The agents are not stupid," said Eriksson. "They suspect we have money to spend, so they come to us with their lists of players."
Eriksson has provided Thaksin with his own list of transfer targets and Ronaldinho's name is not present on the basis that City's manager does not believe it could ever happen. "I have a crystal clear idea of who I want," said Eriksson. "I know that one target for the owner, and rightly so, is to fill the stadium for every match," he added.
"One way to do that is to fight higher up the league. Another is to buy a big, big, big star. Ronaldinho was the No1 player in the world two years ago and he is still a very good player. If you asked any manager in the world about him, you would get the same answer every time."
Yet Ronaldinho, as Eriksson pointed out, is unlikely to want to swap Barcelona for a club that is aiming to play in next season's Intertoto Cup. The fact that Thaksin thought the Brazilian would be interested does not reflect well on the former Thai prime minister's knowledge of the sport.
Milan's vice-president, Adriano Galliani, said he is confident of signing Ronaldinho in the summer but admitted the Rossoneri might have to beat off competition from their city rivals Internazionale for the Brazilian forward. "I believe this deal will be done," Galliani said. "I know that Inter are also very interested and it will be a tough derby in the transfer market."