KEY POINTS:
The proposed, or alleged, deal that would take the Brazilian footballer Kaka from the glamour of Milan to the charms of Manchester City involves money that makes you draw breath.
The figures are speculative, but if close to the truth they are staggering.
Kaka would get, perhaps, $30
million as a sign-on fee, and earn $1 million a week, give or take a few hundred thousand dollars either side depending on which report you read last.
One claim is that Kaka would even be paid more than $6 million to make up for City not being European Champions League material yet.
In other words, a man who is already fabulously rich, who will become richer still, would get compo for joining a club that isn't very good.
This deal, if it happens, would be driven by the clubs rather than the player. Manchester City are awash in Arab oil money, while even Milan would find a $270 million transfer fee almost impossible to turn down.
But Kaka can hardly be relishing the chance to rescue a struggling Premier League club, or spend the end of the season helping them avoid relegation. Right now, Manchester City are mid-table, but in terms of points they are far closer to the bottom than the top.
Reports over the weekend say Kaka will go - and that he won't go. There is even a claim that Milan's owner, Silvio Berlusconi, has cooked the whole thing up so he is painted as a white knight when Milan hang on to the star.
Whether Kaka arrives at City or not, it does raise the issue of whether unlimited resources mean it is inevitable the club will, eventually, buy success.
I'll wager not. All the money in the world cannot buy the chemistry which makes a champion team. Too much money, the belief that gold equals goals, might actually work against it.
Money helps, but it doesn't seal the deal. Manchester City, owned by a sheikh whose family owns Abu Dhabi, will be a fascinating test case as to the extent to which money can buy success.
By the standards of the past two decades, once-mighty Liverpool should have had the resources to carry on their winning ways, but they have struggled. Money can also buy sporadic success, as it did at a club such as Blackburn, yet fail to run the distance.
For all of Manchester City's intent, their famous neighbours United plus Chelsea, Arsenal, Aston Villa et al are not about to lie down for them either.
Beyond that, you also wonder what the arrival of one player on staggering money, whose deal puts such a gulf between himself and those around him, would have on a club. And how would Kaka react, being under so much pressure with an average team around him at the start?
The whole Kaka business would create its own circus - the sort of scenario which led to Sir Alex Ferguson encouraging David Beckham and Manchester United to part company.
Whatever the outcome, there is already one winner. The English Premier League has scored publicity only an Arab oilman could pay for.