It's political incorrectness gone mad. Club loyalty, financial acumen, footballing logic, and even reason itself may very well be on its way out of the (transfer) window. Yes, you really can believe what you've read.

Manchester City's owners from the United Arab Emirates are prepared to shell out a nine-figure sum to bring AC Milan's glittering Brazilian star Kaka to Eastlands. Kaka has pledged his future to AC Milan of course "for as long as he is wanted".

Didn't Beckham (now at AC Milan) say something similar about LA Tigers? When Atyeo made such a pledge to Bristol City when Chelsea and Liverpool were after him, that was the end of it. Big John was here to stay. Nowadays a pledge means "watch this space" or, rather, watch these figures.

If he accepts, Kaka would become the world's first £100 million footballer, not to mention its highest paid. A Premiership player can expect to earn a million pounds a year – more than most of us make in our careers. Kaka can expect to make that in just over a month. Not much credit crunch there.

It's worth it to somebody, of course. Not just to the Manchester City fan whose weekend is brightened by a Kaka winning goal. But, by way of the replica shirts, the sponsorships, the spin-offs, the "branding" of Manchester City as a world force. By some obscene measure, this purchase may be financially "worth" it in a way that, say, genuine investment in the NHS isn't. It generates huge – glitzy – wealth.

Kaka's £100 million would more than double the £46 million Real Madrid paid Juventus for Zidane in 2001, perhaps the most shocking upping of the ante since Vieri left Lazio for Internazionale at the end of the last century for a then record-doubling £32 million.

The "big name but past his sell-by" Shevkenko cost Chelsea a wasted £30.8 million. Robhino – £32 million from Real Madrid the moment Manchester City got their hands on some big bucks – has hardly transformed City's fortunes on the pitch. Quite the contrary. Kaka may be an even bigger version of the same mistake.

The huge transfers of Rio Ferdinand (£29 million) in 2002 and Wayne Rooney (£27 million) in 2004 and Berbatov (£30.75 million) to City's now poorer neighbours now look like January sales bargains. But all have needed time and astute management to make them work.

Form is a very delicate thing even at Championship level, as then record-signing Trundle has shown in Bristol.

Form is impossible to buy. And at Premiership level, the margins are even slenderer.

A great player whose form reaches its peak – of ability and price – in one team combination may never transfer it to another. Andy Cole was never the same striker once he was parted from Beardsley at Newcastle.

In those black and white stripes he used to frighten defences, goalkeepers and crowds just by looking at them. At Manchester United, weighed down by that big fee, his air of invincibility waned, especially after his partnership with his replacement Dwight Yorke broke up.

The inflated value of transfers is all the more marked because, even more than the swanky new cars they drive, their value depreciates almost immediately.

It is a fact of football that lethal strikers get lethal injuries. Michael Owen's brilliance depended on pace – the kind of thunderbolt pace that could get in behind even an Argentine defence – and injury cost him that.

Shearer after injury – and the big transfer to Newcastle – was never the SAS maestro he'd been with Chris Sutton. And, like all of the players mentioned here, Kaka is getting on (27 in April) and past his best.

You are buying the reputation and the name but are you buying the player – and the combination – that made that glorious name? A hundred million pounds is a ludicrous amount to invest in such a risk.

It's all been said before. When England international Alf Common left Sunderland for Middlesbrough for the inflated sum of £1,000 in 1905, the country was in uproar. The going rate for a top forward was £400. The Athletic News of February 20, 1905, gasped: "Fancy a young club like Middlesbrough, with their resources, paying £1,000 for a single player. As a matter of commerce, 10 young recruits at £100 apiece might have paid better and, as a matter of sport, the Second Division would be more honourable than retention of place by purchase."

Common, a human goal-scoring machine, kept them up. But later, aged 30, his purchase by "Woolwich" Arsenal in 1910 was not a success. Common went on to run a pub. Whatever happens, Kaka is unlikely to do that.

This is another world from Kaka, except that a team of cheap recruits is still better than a big- price individual. An individual can be great for business, but football is a team game. Beckham almost squares that circle with his team-sized heart, but this Kaka project is Fantasy Football in the real world.

Compiling all the big names like a 14-year-old playing Championship Manager on his PC will never achieve results. A team is not defined by its parts, but by its spirit. The FA Cup giant-killing tradition is proof of this. Chelsea had to match Southend's team spirit before their player's individual superiority could show. Matches are decided by something more than worth.

The Abu Dhabi ownership itself raises more than enough questions – not least about the disgusting human rights treatments in the UAE. How can Manchester City fans cheer a player funded in part by the generation of income through the exploitation of migrant workers throughout the Emirates?

Finally, it can be condemned as a vanity signing. Surely Manchester City need an enforcer, not another glamour boy? This is like someone who needs a heavy winter coat going out and buying himself another silk suit.

And do the Gulf money men know how limited a track record Mark Hughes has to date?

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Gareth Calway, a retired head of English at an East Anglian comprehensive, is an avid football fan. He is also Bristol City football club's official poet, a post he has held since 2004. Soccer is, literally, in his blood – his parents met at the club's Ashton Gate stadium.