Spectator Sport | 19 September 2009

In a recent issue of the brilliant weekly glossy magazine produced by the French sports paper L’Equipe, there is a picture that tells you all you need to know about modern football. It shows the owner of Manchester City, Sheikh Kaldoon al-Mubarak, leaving the stadium after the home game against Wolves. He is being driven away in his Bentley; all around are the black-suited muscle. To the left are a few fans, pale, slightly plump men and women in light blue replica shirts. They are on the same page, in the same place, but light years apart.

And it’s only in the context of this absurd, corrupt, narcissistic world of extremes that you can begin to understand the behaviour of City’s excitable new star Emmanuel Adebayor in their enthralling 4-2 victory last weekend. His journey to Eastlands, via Metz, Monaco and Arsenal, began in extreme poverty in Lome, Togo. He is very close to his mother and surrounded by relatives, family and hangers-on, some well-meaning, some not so.