Jez Moxey in blast for Manchester City

Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey today blasted Manchester City's wealth for distorting the Premier League.

City took their second successive huge summer spend to over £100m with the £22.5m signing of Inter Milan forward Mario Balotelli. And Villa and England midfielder James

Milner is set to arrive for £26m once Stephen Ireland has agreed his pay-off from Eastlands.

Since City were taken over by the Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008, the club has spent £122m in transfer fees alone in 2008-09 and £117m last season, with combined fees and wages for their first two years in control running at a staggering £455m.

But they only finished 10th then fifth in the Premier League and Moxey believes their spending is bad for the game.

"The Manchester City situation is not good for football in the Premier League," said Moxey.

"Not only are they contributing in a big way towards spiralling wages and unrealistic demands elsewhere, but there is a risk that they could garner all of the talent.

"It's becoming so difficult for anyone else to compete both on a competitive and talent level but also on a financial level.

"And they're only able to do it because they've got sovereign wealth behind them.

"I'm not sure that's what I would want to see if I could control it. But I can't so all I can control is what we do.

"Manchester City are trying to win the Premier League and dominate Europe — if they can — for certain reasons.

"Their owners want to promote themselves and the club, and they see that as a good way of doing it.

"They've got more money than they know what to do with and they're investing with it."

Moxey now believes City risk being accused of bad taste with reports of Stephen Ireland refusing to leave over reports that he wants a £2m 'pay-off' to leave as part of the James Milner deal.

"It's reported that he's going to continue negotiating until he gets more and more money to leave," he said.

"We run the risk of losing what the game is really about.

"It gets too distorted too easily when you have such wealth to buy the best players wherever they are in the world.

"But as we saw last season, sometimes buying the best talent doesn't always means you're going to be the most successful."

Despite City's wealth, Moxey still believes they will struggle to compete with the European superpowers, because unlike the Premier League, the vast sums from TV deals aren't on a level playing field.

"They've got their eyes on European competition, but the rules of engagement when they're playing teams such as Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC Milan etc aren't the same," he said.

"For example, Barcelona and Real Madrid negotiate their own TV contracts so you could argue they've got a commercial advantage over some Premier League clubs."