THE close season transfer market has always been interesting.

But, with the current economic climate, it was expected to be a stable one - until the entry of Florentino Perez.

The re-elected Real Madrid president has turned it into a chaotic free-for-all as the world's leading clubs squabble among themselves over the delicacies left behind on the table.

By forking out over ?80 million ($192m) for Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo and ?56m for Brazilian playmaker Kaka, Perez has skewed everything.

Suddenly, deals that looked likely to be made are on hold. Players who seemed certain to be moving elsewhere are being prevented from doing so by clubs playing a bluffing game in the hope of securing a similar astronomical price.

Call it high-stakes soccer poker, with no assurance that anyone will emerge a winner.

For instance, it appeared last week to be only a matter of days before Spanish striker David Villa joined Ronaldo and Kaka at Real Madrid. But then Valencia president Manuel Llorente announced that Villa was 'not for sale' and would stay with the debt-ridden Spanish club.

Llorente gave himself an out. He might, he said, be open to a 'scandalously' high offer. In other words, much more than the ?13m Real Madrid are already said to have been dangling in Valencia's direction.

In Germany, Bayern Munich are playing much the same game.

There, French midfielder Franck Ribery has stated that he would like to move on, and if that move entails swapping Munich's snow for Madrid's sunshine, so much the better.

Perez, in an ingenious move, has not only put former French star Zinedine Zidane on his payroll as a presidential advisor but has enlisted his help in landing Ribery, who is valued at somewhere around ?60m by Bayern.

'I am all for Ribery joining Real Madrid and I will do everything to make it possible,' Zidane recently told Le Parisien.

Complicating matters for Real Madrid is the fact that Manchester United now have plenty of cash on hand from the Ronaldo sale and are not at all put off by Bayern's asking price for Ribery. The success that fellow Frenchman Eric Cantona enjoyed at Manchester United might cause Ribery to lean that way too.

While the pursuit of Villa and Ribery goes on, other dominoes have been slow in falling. There is a pause in the spending spree as player agents crisscross the continent trying to make a killing while the tabloids have a field day by printing rumours...and rumours of rumours.

As Massimo Moratti, Inter-Milan's president, neatly summed it up: 'During the transfer window, a headline in a newspaper is enough to transform groundless rumours into truth.'

All the same, one change is locked in stone.

Greener pastures

Argentinian striker Carlos Tevez, now a free agent, has thumbed his nose at a five-year, ?109,000-a-week contract offered by English champions Manchester United and is trying to line up a move to either Manchester City or Chelsea.

Also seeking greener pastures is Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who has grown bored with Italian champions Inter even though he is the Italian league's highest-paid player at a reported ?9m a year and was the top scorer in Serie A last season.

'Many people criticised me when I arrived in Italy,' he told Sky Italia after Inter's fourth successive title was won. 'They said I was a fantastic player but couldn't score goals. Now I am Serie A's top scorer. I showed them who I am. I can't do any better than this. I really don't know what else I can still do in Italy.'

But the brakes have been put on Ibrahimovic's moving anywhere because Inter have said they would expect to receive the same ?80m for the Swede that Real Madrid paid for Ronaldo.

If Real Madrid balk at the asking price, Chelsea might not, especially if they can get a substantial discount by sending Ivory Coast striker Didier Drogba to Inter to join his former manager, Jose Mourinho, as part of the deal.

Whether Chelsea would also want Inter's Brazilian defender Maicon, who has a ?33m price-tag, is unclear.

Another club that had been interested in Ibrahimovic was Barcelona, the defending Spanish and European champions. They dangled Cameroon striker Samuel Eto'o plus cash in front of Inter in a failed bid to land Ibrahimovic.

The deal might still happen, but with Manchester City apparently willing to splash out a substantial sum for Eto'o, nothing is certain for the moment.

AP