European Football's All About the Money Now

Fame and money can really turn people to greed and arrogance. This is what I see with all too clearly as Ronaldo finally stated his stance on his not-too-unpredictable move to Spanish team Real Madrid.

Despite Manchester United constantly telling everybody that striker Cristiano Ronaldo will stay with Old Trafford, the Portuguese star player goes on to tell the world:

"I would like to play for Real Madrid but only if it is true they are ready to pay what Manchester United ask of them."

Cute. Real cute. It was like he was just playing hard-to-get these past few days, trying to get the highest bid on him to set place.

Ronaldo's not the only one at fault for European football starting to look like a money-grabbing sport. A lot of players are being bought and sold among the European teams. The managers are starting to look like hungry wolves to me, and the players becoming their pups drooling after the money.

Togo striker Emmanuel Adebayor, who is reported to have agreed to join AC Milan despite previously insisting that he would stay with Arsenal, admitted to stating how money makes the world of soccer go round. Here's a clip from the dailymail UK article.

The 24-year-old returned to his country this week to receive the BBC African player of the year award where he insisted moves abroad were fuelled solely by cash.

He said: "If you move, it is about money. When we were young we played because we love the game and we were passionate about it. But now, when you reach this stage you are thinking about the Champions League and big things like that.

"Whenever I come back to my country people love me. If I didn't go to Europe for money, what else would it be for?"

He also said something that made me cringe a little at the people who should be inspiring football/soccer lovers like me:

"If you gave me the option of playing beautiful football and winning nothing, or playing ugly and winning then obviously it would be the latter.

"You are judged on what you win. We play in a great team with a great manager, but we don't want to play beautiful football just to put smiles on the faces of the fans."

That's another player on my football/soccer hate list.