[dukeofdavinci]

Perrotta: Money talks...
Saturday 3 May, 2008

While Roma deny receiving a new £220m offer from George Soros, Simone Perrotta warns football has become dominated by big spending clubs.

Today’s newspaper reports claimed Inner Circle Sports magnate Soros had sent a letter to the Giallorossi upping his takeover bid to £220m.

That would be £150m to the Sensi family’s Italpetroli company plus another £70m to the various minority shareholders who own 33 per cent of the club.

Only a few hours after the publication of this story, Roma released a statement denying they had received any letter or communication.

Some sections of the support have come out in favour of the takeover bid, believing more money would enable them to compete on the transfer market and therefore in Serie A and Europe too.

“The English clubs have a stratospheric economic power and it will be increasingly difficult to compete with them for international titles,” warned midfielder Perrotta.

“Every year they sign the top players on the market by spending sums the rest of the continent cannot match.

“Economic power means a great deal in football now and allows them to take the best players in circulation. This is why the English sides are dominating in Europe right now.”

In a year when three of the four Champions League semi-finalists are from the Premiership, it is no coincidence that half the richest clubs in the world are based in Britain.

According to a recent survey by Forbes, Manchester United are the richest side worth $1,800m, while Roma are in 11th place at $434m

Perrotta, who was born in Ashton and spent the first five years of his life in England, hopes that won’t necessarily be the case in the peninsula.

“I don’t think Inter are so superior to us and we have proved that we greatly reduced the gap separating the teams last season, not just in terms of points.

“From Christmas onwards it was clear there wasn’t that much between us and compared to last year the values of the two squads more or less balanced out.”

perrotta on the o ngoing take over talks.wow we are 11th richest!!now that shows we are among the big fishes