The last Ballon D’or winner before the Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi duopoly, Kaka has revealed how close he came to making a £100million world record move to Manchester City in 2009.
But the 35-year-old snubbed the lucrative move because he was dubious about over the club’s squad-building process.
He has now admitted that the speculation caused him a lot of stress and a number of problems.
Kaka told FourFourTwo: “I was sat at home when the telephone rang – I can still remember it clearly. It was my father and he seemed nervously excited. Then he told me a team in England, Manchester City, had made Milan a huge offer for me.
“Before I could even react, he added that Milan were prepared to accept the bid. I’d had absolutely no idea that Manchester City were interested in signing me until they’d actually made their official offer to Milan.
“The process had been really different to how these things often work. City didn’t talk to my father– who also acted as my agent– first.
They’d gone straight to Milan and made their intention clear. Very clear in fact. They made Milan an offer for me, then sat back and asked, ‘What do you think?’
“It looked like a new, exciting challenge and a new chapter for me, but it had all come out of nowhere, and very quickly. Soon I started to feel confused and anxious. The situation messed me up.”
“The negotiations between City and I went very far indeed. It came to the point where all of the numbers and the finer details had been discussed. The offer was on the table.
“The only thing separating City and I was my final word.
“The wages I had been offered were much, much higher than what I was earning with Milan. In moments like those, you begin to picture how your future will look. It’s only natural.
“I’d finally come to the conclusion that it wasn’t quite the right time for me to go to City, and the main reason was the uncertainty over the squad-building process that they were about to undertake.
“It wasn’t clear to me how the squad would be reshaped and I wasn’t too convinced it would work.