Who needs satire when you've got football? As the business of recession grasps us, so football comes up with the possibility of the €105 million transfer. The best player in the world to go to Manchester City. Those insufficiently steeped in footballing lore will need a footnote here: Manchester City are football's perennial poor relations, forever floundering pathetically behind Manchester United, buoyed by little more than perversity.

But now Manchester City, of all clubs, has made a reckless bid for a fragile, beautiful and talented Brazilian by the name of Kaká. Brazilian footballers are traditionally known by a nickname: Kaká has no scatological roots but is a diminutive of Ricardo: Kaká is in fact Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite. Manchester City, however, have for season after season been written off as cacca (and you know you are).

But a few months ago City became the richest club in the world when it was bought by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who has already paid £32.5 million for another fragile beautiful Brazilian, Robinho. Now City continue their attempt to buy up all the beautiful Brazilian footballers in the world. And even if they fail, the world will know the name of City.

All the same, the first reaction is one of discomfort. Even at the best of times, it pains us to see someone paying out 95 million pound coins - count them - on a dream of beauty, and rather, some might add, a plebeian idea of beauty. Right now, when repaying the mortgage each month demands a shirt-waving celebration, a sheikh is making us all feel distinctly fourth division. This is not a sensitive time for sheikhs to celebrate their loose change.

We are always ready to sneer at wealthy men who get involved with sport. True, some instantly lose their heads and abandon the principles that made them rich - but others know that sport has something that other businesses cannot give you: things like fame and name and beauty and love.

It is a common notion that Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea because he was suddenly besotted with the beautiful game. This is not the case. Mr Abramovich was a hugely successful man, but no one outside the dull if intense world of money had ever heard of him. He wanted renown, and not entirely as a matter of vanity. He wanted fame as an adjunct to power. Because of football his name is now known across the world and it carries weight wherever he goes. That is worth a good deal: it might even be worth the £700 million he is owed by Chelsea. As a vehicle for Abramovich promotion, sport has done the job better than anything in the world could have done.

Sheikh Mansour's stated aim for diving into Manchester City is to promote Abu Dhabi. He and his family rule, or if you prefer, own the place. If you want to know how an individual's involvement can help a place to prosper, Sheikh Mansour's neighbour, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, could explain.

Sheikh Mohammed's patronage has been in racing. He owns and runs the mighty Godolphin operation and has established the world's richest horse race in Dubai. Dubai, as a centre for world business and tourism, has grown exponentially. Sport is a universal language: sport opens doors.

Sport, it is also important to understand, is not actually about money. Money exerts a bizarre fascination in sport: but this tends to vanish once the whistle has blown or the starting-gates have opened. Just as few people gaze at a Van Gogh thinking about the cost, so few people watch Kaká in his pomp and worry about the cash.

But sport can always make a fool of people. Sport's beauty lies in it being beyond the command even of the richest purse on the planet. If Manchester City confronted the next season with a few magical ball-players and no enforcers and defenders, they would fail and become a laughing-stock. Kaká's reluctance to leave AC Milan tells us that Manchester City are not yet what they hope to be: nor even close.

Mr Abramovich wanted his name associated with a team of glory and beauty: the refusal of his former manager, José Mourinho to supply such a thing infuriated him. Godolphin's bid for global conquest has been worsted again and again by the Coolmore syndicate of Ireland. You don't get sport on your own terms: that is the secret of its appeal, why it works so well for those who wish to make a name, and why it is such dangerous stuff.

But all the same, Mr Abramovich and Sheikh Mohammed and the concerns they represent, have certainly got their money's worth from sport. There is no reason why Sheikh Mansour can't do the same, even if the bid for Kaká is surreal. The tendency in football is to caricature billionaire owners as mad playboys who understand neither sport nor money. The truth is that people like Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mohammed are as crazy and devil-may-care as the people who cut diamonds for a living.

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