The 2011 summer European transfer window began with Eto'o's move to Russian Premier League club Anzhi.
To land the Cameroonian striker, the Russians offered him an enormous annual salary of twenty million euros, allowing the now thirty-year-old Eto'o to move to Russia for the staggering fee of twenty-seven million euros.
It could be said that as soon as this transfer was announced, it immediately sent shock waves through European Football.
Media and fans around the world realized that the rules of the game in the European summer transfer market had changed.
Nowadays, the ones capable of dominating the transfer market were no longer the traditional giants, but the tycoons swarming in from all over the world—for example, Man City's Abu Dhabi consortium, Anzhi's Russian tycoons, Paris Saint-Germain's Qatari consortium, and La Liga's Málaga, also backed by Qatar...
After receiving massive investment from their owners, these nouveau riche clubs attacked from all sides in the transfer market. They not only drove up the overall value of transfers, but also plundered the traditional giants.
Take Atletico Madrid's Aguero, for example.
The Argentine striker had long been in contact with Real Madrid and Barcelona. Everyone had basically assumed that Aguero would go to either Real Madrid or Barcelona. But no one had expected Man City to act directly, pay his forty-five-million-euro release clause, and convince him with a huge salary to bring the Argentine striker to the Premier League.
Clearly, the Abu Dhabi consortium had learned from the lesson of the previous year. Back then, they had hesitated for a moment, resulting in Valencia's David Silva joining Real Madrid. Over the past year, David Silva's performances at Real Madrid had been plain for all to see, and Man City deeply regretted it.
This time, Man City acted swiftly and decisively, signing Aguero outright