Real Madrid's offer to pay ￡80m for Cristiano Ronaldo, Manchester United's star winger, is enough to make a banking hot-shot wince. The move was the Spanish football club's second mega-deal this week after it reportedly agreed to hand AC Milan ￡56m for Kaka, the Brazilian mid-fielder. The transfer fees do not even include the salaries both players will draw from their new clubs. Ronaldo should be particularly pleased to escape the UK's new 50 per cent top tax rate.

At a time when the average football fan's wages are stagnant, at best, throwing around such huge sums is audacious. It is hard to avoid comparisons with the pay packages that were lavished on top bankers, who once thought of themselves as belonging to a Premier League of international finance.

Footballers' salaries have inflated rapidly, along with transfer fees. Wages in England's Premier League have grown at a compound annual rate of 19 per cent since the league's founding in 1992, according to Deloitte. Players' wages sucked up 62 per cent of the League's revenues last year, comparable to the 50 per cent or so investment bankers pay themselves. Still, just as the best dealmakers attract the most lucrative clients, top footballers attract the top sponsors, fill stadiums, and draw TV viewers. In this context, shelling out for top talent makes sense.