Bayern set to put Manchester City's in their place

Yet while the town will welcome the thirsty hordes, there might be a slightly frostier welcome extended by Bayern Munich to Manchester City.

Bayern are European football aristocracy and their representatives stalk the corridors of power. Franz Beckenbauer, honorary club president, is influential in the German football association and through it Uefa and Fifa while Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, the club chairman, is also chairman of the powerful European Club Association.

Now these aristocrats seem to have taken against the arrivistes, with their petrodollars and grand ambitions.

Bayern have been a vocal supporter of Michel Platini’s Financial Fair Play regulations, motivated in no small part by the fact that restrictions on subsidised clubs like Manchester City would play into their hands – their huge commercial revenues mean they can live within their means and outspend most.

Two years ago Uli Hoeness, the Bayern club president, took public delight in rubbishing the City project after watching them. 

“I noticed that millions have been invested by certain people there very badly,” he said. “I saw that they [the players] can do absolutely nothing, even though they were very expensive.”