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Is City’s Robinho damaged goods?
His mother’s kidnap has scarred Robinho, says Gibby Zobel
Braziliant! screams the website of Manchester City Football
Club, now the world's richest thanks to its takeover by an Arab consortium led by Sulaiman al-Fahim.
The headline refers to the unexpected signing of the 24-year-old Brazilian Robinho - unexpected because all the talk had him going to Chelsea - for a Premier League transfer fee record of £32.5m. It left fans unsure whether to put a tea-towel on their head (as they were doing for the TV cameras this morning) or dance the samba.
Robinho will be joining up with Elano, with whom he won the
Brazilian championships with Pele's old team Santos in 2002 and 2004. If he can dazzle in Britain's wettest city, City fans may have reason to celebrate. But dark rumours are surfacing over the Brazilian's mental state.
On Sunday he took the extraordinary step of calling his own press conference, pleading to leave Real Madrid for Chelsea. Amid tales of tears and tantrums, he was publicly criticised by his own team-mates for behaving like a mercenary, while Real's president, Roman Calderon, claimed he was "in bad shape" and was leaving the club "for human nature reasons". In short, Calderon seemed to be suggesting that Robinho was an emotional basket-case.
Back in Brazil the reaction has been similar. Benjamin Back, a columnist for the daily Brazilian sports paper Lance, wrote today: "He gets upset over anything. In Spain the supporters call him 'pesetero', or mercenary. And they are not wrong."
Robinho's troubles date back to 2004 when he was flying high with Santos. He was pictured on the cover of the monthly football magazine Placar in a shopping trolley, and Chelsea were said to be interested. But such fame and status is dangerous in a country where bullet-proof cars are the norm for the middle classes - and Robinho was about to find out why.
His mother, Marina Lima de Souza, 43, was dramatically kidnapped in Praia Grande, an hour from Sao Paulo. The armed attackers ran into the garden where she was enjoying a barbeque and demanded: "We want Robinho's mother."
Robinho was forced to quit playing football while Marina was held
to ransom. An agonising six weeks followed with the player eventually paying £43,000 to secure her release. Afterwards, the cheeky kid from the slums of Santos was visibly a different person.
When he moved to Real Madrid the next year he took his whole family with him. He will do the same when he comes to Manchester City in time for his first game in a light blue shirt - at home to Chelsea on September 13. ·
