Money can buy you happiness.

Whoever said money can’t buy you happiness has clearly not seen the excitement and happiness oozing from the blue side of Manchester, which can be seen from just about the darkest corners of the earth.

With Manchester City posting a British record loss of 195 million pounds earlier this week, previously shattering Chelsea’s 141 million pounds in 2005. But of course to City owner Sheikh Mansour this is pocket money, and to all those noisy neighbours its pocket money well spent.

 For all this money spent the City fans were always curious to question if it would take them that extra mile into being a force to be reckoned with in English football.

That question was emphatically answered when the final whistle was blown on Sunday 23 October, when the final score displayed Manchester City 6-1 Manchester United. Happiness bought in a millisecond!

This is not the first time a British club’s takeover has resulted in millions invested in transfer fees, contracts, youth facilities etc. and proved decisive in moving them up the English league table in a gradual shift of power in the English game.

Queens Park Rangers and Chelsea are prime examples of this with Roman Abramovich taking over Chelsea in June 2003, success wasn’t seen straight away but there is no doubt Chelsea’s dominance in the English game is majorly down to the Russians takeover of the London club.

Although there are many times this has happened there is no doubt Manchester City’s reliance on ownership input in a financial sense, way out weighs Chelsea’s. In the last 10 to 15 years Chelsea have always been in the running for most English silverware, with their league positions showing this. In City’s case they hardly looked past mid-table let alone silverware, with their raise to prominence being a much more immediate one.

The question hovering over most football enthusiasts though, is when to draw the line. There is no doubt the wealth City posses is an unfair advantage over such clubs as Everton and Bolton who have based their clubs development around sustainability.

This question leads into an even greater sense of alarm, with footballing fans starting to question where the very future of football lies. To many times have I heard “money is destroying the game” to disregard it as an empty accusation.

Many feel passion, pride and love for our beautiful game is being replaced by thirst for more money and pure greed. We seldom see players who are classically branded as  “one club men”, the days of Gary Neville, “Mr Man United” as known to some are long gone.

We see more frequently that modern day footballers are willing to sit on the bench and in turn take a huge wage raise, in a almost trade where the sheer playing of football is being swapped for a better overall weekly wage.

Who knows the actual destination for the future of football and if this destination will be heavily effected by the large influx of money but one thing is for sure the Noisy Neighbours aren’t complaining.