This is such a strange hang-up people have.
The agents fees for Haaland were widely reported as an unprecedented and ridiculous 34M, on top of the 51M owed to Dortmund for the release clause.
In theory that added payment should be considered as part of the transfer expenditure, though reportedly half of it went to Haaland's father, so that bit might be more properly categorized as a signing on bonus, which seems like it would clearly fall on the wages/player payment side of the ledger.
That still takes it up to only 85M.
Haaland cost City less than Kane cost Bayern.
But it's very important to some people to bullshit their way to that having secretly been the financial equivalent of the Neymar to PSG deal or what the Saudis were offering Messi or something.
The reality that Haaland is choosing his career path very intelligently and carefully and that while major investment was required, City won the rights to Haaland at well below the potential market price because of Haaland's faith in the Guardiola project (he reportedly has a release clause which activates if Pep goes).
That offends the delicate sensibilites of people who want sovereign wealth to be the omnipotent evil overlord of the football world, I guess.
Sorry folks, sovereign wealth sucks, but life is complicated.
