by The government today admitted that its recently announced immigration cap may limit Manchester City’s summer spending to a measly fifty billion pounds on 24,000 foreign footballers.
With only 24,000 workers from outside of the EU to be granted work permits between now and April 2011, Manchester City are being forced to shelve plans to sign approximately 11,000 further Brazilian footballers.
A Manchester City insider told us, “Roberto Mancini had drawn up a long-list of 47,000 players he was interested in acquiring this summer, which we then whittled down to a more manageable 35,000.”
“Unfortunately, the government has stuck it’s oar in and now we can only buy 24,000 of those players in the next transfer window, meaning Roberto will spend the next year with a sizeable war chest burning a hole in his pocket.”
“It also means that reserve forward Romarioaldinho at Brazilian fourth division club Sao Raimundo will have to spend another year learning his trade before coming to spend his time in Manchester City’s thirty-seventh string.”
“This also has the added side-effect of forcing the price up on any English players worth buying, should we happen to stumble across one.”
Necessary
A government spokesperson explained the move, telling reporters “After such a dismal World Cup for England, we feel that by limiting Manchester City’s purchases to approximately 24,000 non-EU players, there’s a chance we could see a single English player make it through their ranks at some point.”
“We do however realise that this means next season Manchester City fans are likely to be forced to sit through an hour or so of Shaun Wright-Phillips continually whacking his crosses into the first defender over and over again, but that’s football I’m afraid.”
“We would encourage Manchester City to look bit closer to home, in fact there is a league full of talented footballers north of the border just crying out for the opportunity to play in England’s top league.”
“Christ, I almost managed to say that with a straight face, sorry.”
