EVEN by Manchester City's own standards, the events of the last 48-hours take some beating.

A club that has made the unexpected seem the norm over several decades has again shocked the footballing and business worlds by changing hands for the second time in little more than a year.

The news that a deal to sell the club to Abu Dhabi United Group for Development - just an early word of friendly advice to the new owners, try and drop the word United - had been brokered on Sunday took even high-ranking and well-placed club employees by surprise.

But before we go any further this latest change of ownership - when it becomes official - should not be viewed with cynicism or scepticism but as a hugely positive and extremely large stride towards City becoming a dominant force in the Premier League.

It is a deal from which everyone emerges a winner.

Ambitions

The new owners can be applauded for seeing the potential at Eastlands and pledging to finance the club to the hilt, Thaksin Shinawatra should be congratulated for realising that he could no longer fulfil his own lofty ambitions for City and bowing out without putting the future of the club at risk and, just as vitally, the fans can now look forward to embarking on a rocket ride of pure excitement.

In the coming months if the ADUG Group are true to their word, and there is not the slightest reason to doubt that they will be, Chelsea and United will have real opposition when it comes to the transfer market.

In fact, there are those attached to the takeover who are certain that the Premier League and European Champions will soon not be able to live with their neighbours when it comes to future purchasing power.

For City's trump card will be that they are completely debt-free and have at their helm ultra-ambitious owners with a player budget the size of which has never before been seen in the Blue half of Manchester. There will also be plenty of working capital.

Emirate royal families take their sport extremely seriously hence the recent domination of the horse racing world by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the Crown Prince of Dubai and his Godolphin group. The Blues' new owners are not only neighbours of the Dubai Royals but related and friends.

The ADUG group are said to be similarly single minded though they may yet find themselves football rivals of the Dubai royals who are still actively pursuing the purchase of Liverpool.

The days of John Wardle's homely regime struggling by on television money and high profile sales now suddenly seem a long time ago.

For make no mistake, the takeover by the Abu Dhabi group which to all intents and purposes will be backed by the ruling family led by is the world's second wealthiest King, Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a pro-western moderniser with an estimated wealth of $23 billion, vaults City into another spectacular stratosphere in terms of finance.

Riches

The purchase of the Blues for what will eventually amount to more than £200m once the shares have been purchased, debts and liabilities paid off, is a mere drop in the ocean to billionaires who are dripping with oil riches.

Despite the Blues reticence to talk about the deal, silence forced upon them by tiresome and complicated legal restraints, the deal to buy City is said to be effectively done with due diligence only necessary on some minor issues.

It will take 15 days for all the official paperwork to find its way through the complicated system, including the Premier League, but the influence of the new owners has already been felt and is why the Blues have been able to indulge in a great deal of transfer activity in the past few weeks.

As soon as the Memorandum of Understanding was agreed on Sunday night between Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim and Thaksin Shinawatra's trusted lieutenant Pairoj Piempongsant in Abu Dhabi it was all systems go behind the scenes with the new owners already thinking in terms of David Villa and Dimitar Berbatov as the kind of players they want manager Mark Hughes to be able to chase.

City insiders party to the details of the sale though none of whom were allowed to go on the record because of legal red tape, hailed the ADUG deal as fantastic news and a great day for the football club.

Hughes' job as manager is not under threat though it is not clear whether ADUG will want to bring in their own executive directors or stick with the recently appointed Garry Cook and Paul Aldridge the current executive chairman and chief operating officer.

Cook has been one of the movers in the takeover and is ready to work closely with the new owner having spent the last three weeks looking for investors.

Direction

Shinawatra will retain a minor stake but whatever the fans have come to think of the former Thai Prime Minister and the direction he has taken City, his role in the sale should not be underestimated.

After he fled bail from his native Thailand where court cases against him are pending and then indicated that he would seek political asylum in England it became clear his ownership of the Blues was in severe doubt.

Debts mounted, spending slowed to almost a halt and borrowings increased as it became clear that he would not be able to get his own considerably fortune of around £800m unfrozen by the courts in his homeland.

He knew that the pledges he made to turn City into a Champions League side could not be seen to a conclusion without his cash and he knew also that a battle was looming with the Premier League over his ownership.

It was then his intention to raise money by selling off a minority share, though that aim became unrealistic and in the end through a network of contacts he found a buyer and one with considerable financial clout.

Thaksin will be left with around 10 per cent of the club when the dust has settled and he will have an honorary seat on the board. In the

end then his actions were those of a man who understood his responsibilities to the club and its supporters.

The arrival of the new owners may also spell good news for the Eastlands area of Manchester.

ADUG are understood to be interested in talking to the council about the derelict land around the City of Manchester Stadium that was once earmarked for a Supercasino and are generally well-disposed to bringing new development and jobs to the site.

There is of course a vast difference between having money and spending it wisely but all the indications are that City have entered the footballing super league!

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