- Jul 24, 2005
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It was vetoed because of the fee was on offer as well below the market rate, the simple fact is that we only deferred his departure with did not stop this because no club can without damaging itself.
As for Wenger well he also said that Van Persie wouldn't go to United and yet he did. They will readily sell the player to a rivial and take a fee than lose him to that side anyway without one. And this doesn't just come down to players on short contacts, clubs of our standing such as A. Madrid, Valencia and Dortmund have consistently shown an inability to retain their best players after successful periods often to supposed rivals as well.
The real question is why do people still consider clubs with billionaire benefactors and far superior capacity to ours 'rivals'. Certainly in the league campaign this and last year but in terms of medium to long term success and in terms of transfer and salary spend we are not even in the same league. Leicester competed with these clubs last season but they are not rivials to them. When a club can pay 3-4 times the salary than we can and can easily afford the premium to secure their sevices then some of our supporters are seriously deluding themselves with such confidence when it comes to us retaining our best players.
It's obvious that there are richer clubs that could pay huge fees and massive wages, and if a player really wanted to leave us he probably would get a move, but I doubt it would be to a premier league team as it doesn't make much business sense to strengthen a direct rival. We also happen to be the 12th richest club in the world and should earn an estimated £145m this season so it's not like we're short on money and need to sell players.
Lol I wasn't making a point, I was asking a question.
even so, the reason I excluded bale is because his was obviously an exceptional case. A club our size, who at the time were not in the CL could not turn down a fee that big. Especially as it had the possibility of helping us strengthen the whole squad.
It was an exceptional case and circumstance which didn't fit the trend of other stars we were forced to sell under ENIC - Carrick, Berbatov and Modric all had 2 years or less left on their contracts.
And contrary to your point earlier Modric was not sold to Chelsea because they didn't stump up the cash it's because Levy refused to strengthen a rival. Plus the power was still with club as at that time Modric had 3 years left on his contract. The fact we sold him for £30m to Madrid a year after Chelsea had offered £40m shows the fee was not the determining factor in his sale.
I agree with a lot of points you have made regarding our place in the food chain. But I evidence suggests we won't be bullied into selling anyone that doesn't have 2 years remaining on their contract or we don't have a world record bid in for, and I don't see that changing.
It's also well known that United offered a lot more money for Bale than Real Madrid paid for him.