English football embraced a new superpower last night as Manchester City, who are on the brink of becoming the richest club in the world, outbid Chelsea with a British record offer of £34.2 million to sign Robinho, the Real Madrid and Brazil forward.

And on a truly extraordinary day in the Barclays Premier League, Manchester United finally got their man when they agreed to sign Dimitar Berbatov from Tottenham Hotspur. The London club also got what they wanted with a fee of £30.75 million for the Bulgaria striker and the loan of Fraizer Campbell, the United forward, for a season.

City wasted no time flexing their newfound financial muscle as Thaksin Shinawatra moved closer to selling the club for £200 million to an Arab royal family understood to be considerably richer than Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire Chelsea owner.

Robinho has signed a four-year deal worth £95,000 a week after tax, effectively trebling the wages he was earning at Real. Mark Hughes, the City manager, said: “We have been in the market today for Robinho and I think people understand now that there is another club with the financial power to compete for any player in the world and that’s Manchester City.”

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Having sparked a remarkable tug-of-war with United for Berbatov after lodging a late £32.5 million bid for the Bulgaria striker, City switched their attentions to Robinho when it became clear that Berbatov favoured a move to Old Trafford. Robinho is understood to have threatened to stay in Brazil for two years unless he was allowed to leave Real.

It is rare that Abramovich is trumped in the transfer market, but with the Chelsea owner refusing to increase his bid of £29 million for Robinho, City landed the player in a stunning coup as the landscape of English football prepared to undergo monumental change for the second time in five years.

The figure eclipsed the record £30.4 million that Chelsea paid AC Milan for Andriy Shevchenko two years ago.

With their club seemingly on the brink of financial turmoil only a few weeks ago, City supporters awoke yesterday to the news that the club was on the verge of being sold for the second time in just over a year.

Thaksin, who is seeking political asylum in Britain as he refuses to answer corruption charges in his native Thailand where he was Prime Minister, has agreed to sell City to the Abu Dhabi United Group for Development and Investment (ADUG) for £200 million.

The Times understands that the ultimate prospective owners of City are members of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi, the oil-rich Gulf state. The Al Nahyan family’s total holding is said to run to more than £26 billion.

Outlining their intentions in an interview with The Times yesterday, Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim, a prominent Middle East businessman who has been leading the prospective takeover, made clear that the aim was to turn City into the next Chelsea.

“We are looking to make the same kind of impact at Manchester City that has happened at Chelsea,” Al-Fahim said. “That is what we want and we think it is achievable. The target is to finish in the top four this season and then challenge for the Premier League title next year.”

Al-Fahim said that they would not hesitate to spend £200 million next summer if it was deemed necessary, although claims that the club also bid for David Villa and Mario Gomez, the Valencia and VfB Stuttgart forwards respectively, were understood to be wide of the mark. The due-diligence process could be completed by the end of the week.

United’s capture of Berbatov and Campbell’s loan move in the other direction also negated any threat of legal action by Spurs against United, who had in recent weeks expressed outrage at the manner of the Premier League champions’ approach to negotiations for Berbatov.