exciting times at barcelona

Being a Barcelona fan, there's one big reason to celebrate: Thierry Henry's arrival at the Nou Camp. I dont want to go into details of his four-year deal with my favorite Spanish club. He is set to earn a whopping $200,000 a week.

I got to share Henry's transfer story to our business editor, Nanette, who reacted rather stunned over how much the former Arsenal talisman is about to earn while donning the Barca jersey. "Some people are just so lucky," she says.

Nanette has every reason to be stunned. More than half of the 80-million plus people in the Philippines live on $2 a day. And in a basketball-mad Philippines, sports afficionados talk would rather talk about how much Kobe and LeBron earn from just playing basketball. last year, kobe earned around $17M from his Lakers contract. But football players are actually not far behind. while kevin garnett earned $21m last year, barca's headband-wearing midfield dynamo ronaldinho raked in 29.5M, according to forbes. the amount probably includes his endorsement contract with Nike.

the rest on the forbes list are all familiar names. 2. beckham 29.1M 3. ronaldo 23.4 4. rooney 17.2 5. ballack 16.8 6. henry 15.8 7. zidane 15.6 8. cannavaro 14.6 9. terry 14.3 10. gerrard 14.2

i just wonder how these guys spend all their money.

back to barca, i am particularly concerned about the players who will be leaving the club, following henry's arrival. for me, eidjur gudjohnsen should follow javier saviola out of the nou camp. i am very disappointed with gudjohnsen's performance the past season and the huge number of goal-scoring opportunities he has blown away.

but selling deco is supposed to be not an option. i also don't want samuel eto'o to leave. samuel and thierry would make a great partnership and frank rijkaard has lionel messi to spark the attack when he comes from the bench fresh, while the other team's defenders are fagged out. messi exchanging 1-2 passes at midfield with henry before making a darting run from the right flank. ronaldingo approaches to recieve the ball just outside the box and flicks it to a streaking henry, who blasts the ball to the upright leaving eto'o to slot in the rebound.

i can only imagine. these are exciting times for barcelona.