Manchester City's mega Carlos Tevez deal exposed

It's been a golden era for football in the blue half of Manchester since the riches of Sheikh Mansour arrived in Eastlands back in 2008. City are a club that's been in the shadow of their rivals United for what must feel like an eternity for their suffering supporters, but now is their time to shine and under Pep Guardiola & they're certainly doing that. A domestic double under the Spaniard last season saw them secure their third Premier League title in just 6 years and a 3-1 victory over the Red Devils on Sunday just underlined that they're now the dominant force not just in the north west, but England as a whole.

But recently there's been some news 'leaked' that could have serious consequences for the club. Football Leaks and Der Speigel have produced a number of articles which claim that City have broke a number of transfer and FFP rules which could land them in major trouble. Overpriced sponsorship deals, spending beyond their means and payments to third parties for transfers - these are just some of the claims being thrown around. Today we've seen their deal for Carlos Tevez make the news, this is despite it taking place almost 10 years ago. It was a highly controversial transfer at the time but just now it appears that the facts & figures involved are coming into light, read below...

Tevez's move to Manchester City was the first sign of what was to come. He was one of the first superstars that they managed to lure to the Etihad Stadium and to take someone from Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United was an absolutely massive coup - especially a player as good as Tevez. To leave a club like United the figures involved had to be outrageous and the information that we've seen courtesy of Der Speigel and Football Leaks certainly indicate that.

When he arrived at Eastlands Tevez wasn't bought from United. He was on loan at the club from Kia Joorabchian's Media Sports Investment (MSI) who held all the rights to player - an offshore company based in the British Virgin Islands. West Ham paid Joorabchian to get him to Upton Park and so did United for the course of his 2 year loan, they even agreed to pay £25.5m to keep him at Old Trafford upon that expiry of that loan but he turned them down for City.

Due to MSI owning him City were forced to deal with them in order to get their man, they held all his economic rights which means this transfer got very pricey and extremely complex. For sometime no one's really known just how much City paid in transfer fees to land him but it's reported that they agreed to fork out a then British record of £47m to land their man - with all of the money going to MSI. It may not seem to big now for a player of that quality but it was huge then - with the record transfer then standing at £32.5m which ironically was City again, for their capture of Robinho from Real Madrid.

City paid crazy amounts to MSI to get their man but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Getting a player of Tevez's quality to leave a successful, big club like United meant that he'd demand serious money and the extent of his contract is absolutely ludicrous. Over the course of his 5 year contract he was guaranteed a base salary of £50.3m - making him the highest paid player in the Premier League by some distance. Absolutely staggering amounts and there's more to come, with City including some achievable but hugely lucrative bonuses.

Tevez was supposedly given €1m for reaching the UEFA Champions League, €1m for being the Premier League's top goalscorer and €2m for winning the Premier League title. Alongside the performance based add-ons he was awarded signing on fees of £7.5m along with 'loyalty payments' which totalled to another £7.5m. And if that wasn't enough money for the Argentine he also had a clause inserted into his contract which promised that should any other player employed by the club join and be given a higher salary than him, City were were forced to match that figure.

This is stuff we usually see on Football Manager or FIFA so the possibility of this being true is crazy. Tevez went on to score some hugely important goals and play key roles in both their Premier League (2011-12) & FA Cup (2010-11) wins but his heart was clearly never at the club. He had a reputation as a mercenary and it showed when he went on strike for Roberto Mancini, going AWOL for the majority of their title winning campaign.

He left the club after 4 years for just €9m to Serie A Champions Juventus, with a year still remaining on his outrageously lucrative contract. Der Speigel again claim that City were forced to sort 'termination payments' in which they paid him €4.4m in two instalments in order for him to leave Manchester - representing very costly business for City.

There's no doubting what a sublime player Carlos Tevez has been but if these allegations and figures are true, City have well and truly been taking to the cleaners by him and his representatives. Dealing with third parties as opposed to football clubs (MSI), paying fees to offshore companies (£47m) and not disclosing accurate figures all appear to have played a part here and it's going to be interesting to see what other accusations come to light as the spotlight continues to shine on the Premier League Champions.

Information courtesy of Der Spiegel - SEE HERE