Manchester City’s extravagant spending has been in evidence this summer and it appears they are ready to once again redefine the transfer market by paying a ridiculous amount for Aston Villa jack-of-all-trades James Milner.

But the cash-rich club are not restricting their spending merely to their own squad and their players’ mind-boggling wages. Andy Hunter, writing in The Guardian, reports from New York on a worthy project undertaken by the club.

It is easy to be cynical about modern football clubs, particularly City and their chief executive Garry Cook, so we make no apologies for highlighting this positive tale.

“There is a price to be paid for flaunting extravagant wealth and Manchester City have been taking the flak for destroying football or improving the competition (according to taste) for the past two years. The largesse of Sheikh Mansour is not restricted to expensive footballers, however, as City were at pains to stress in New York yesterday.

“Roberto Mancini, Patrick Vieira, Shay Given, Vincent Kompany and the City chief executive, Garry Cook, sat in a sweltering school hall as a headmaster, or principal as he is known, delivered an impassioned lecture on values and opportunity. They were here for the dedication of a $250,000 (£164,000) "soccer" field that is being constructed on the roof of the PS 72 Lexington Academy in impoverished Spanish Harlem and funded by City and the embassy of the United Arab Emirates.

“The project, over a year in planning, involves a synthetic grass pitch being laid on top of the school and a roof eventually being constructed above. Not an easy task in a six-storey building in Manhattan. The school has been transformed from a 17% pass rate to an A-rated academy in recent years but a lack of facilities leads its pupils, mostly of Hispanic origin, across New York in search of football.

“That will now change, with students plus an extra 600 local children benefiting from the facility and City-organised football clinics. The faltering voice of Tony Hernandez, the principal who has overseen the radical improvement, as he thanked City and the UAE for delivering a project "this school has dreamed about for years" put the cynics in their place.”