I have to say that this whole situation has really got me angry today.
Firstly, we can all get exercised about 14 seconds, I agree it sounds ludicrous. But unfortunately you have to put yourself in FIFAs shoes who we know are a pendantic and ana! organisation at the best of times. If they let this situation set a precedent, where does it stop? Is 5 mins reasonable during the next window, or 7 minutes, maybe 20 mins, what's reasonable? The easiest thing for them to do is hold their line and say a deadline is a deadline and that's that. As much as we can argue that 14 seconds is a ludicrous margin of error to be held to, rules are rules.
What annoys me so much about this situation is that this is all about us extracting every single last penny out of Chelsea for the Drinkwater deal. There is an obsession with getting value for money which, in my opinion, loses us many deals (Keane, Gibson, Evans etc etc) and has now ultimately costs us dearly here. I would much rather have had £5m less for DD and have signed Silva. Andy King (with respect) is now our back up AGAIN having also moved Mendy on.
There are two huge mistakes from my perspective which, quite frankly, someone needs to be sacked for:
1. Why did we not negotiate earlier in the window with Chelsea, even the day before TDD? We tried to be too clever with this to play Chelsea right up to the wire and got burnt.
2. Why on earth let DD go unless your are absolutely certain you have signed his replacement? Given that it was one in, one out due to Drinkwater's huge value to the team, surely it is like a house sale chain? We sign Silva, then let Drinky go. Not the other way round.
I have to say, I think we have a complete bunch of amateurs running the football administration side of this club and this is a hugely embarrassing position to be in. Sorry to point the finger again at Rudkin but football is a hard nosed, multi-million pound business. We need people with sharp elbows and a business brain, not ex academy directors.
I am so annoyed with today's developments and don't think for one second that FIFA will back down, it's not their style.
Time for us to get serious with our business dealings.
Silva Fiasco
posted on 6/9/17
All this last-minute stuff does my head in - might as well just have the window as 2 hours only
posted on 6/9/17
I found myself getting more & more annoyed about this during the day with reports that if the deal isn't ratified by FIFA we'll send him back.
I can accept us messing up and him getting up to speed in training until Jan - although why we felt we couldn't afford him without selling DD first I don't know. But sending him back? 😡
We have tried to sign him 3 times in 12 months and he has said goodbye to everyone in Portugal twice in that period thinking we were going to sign him. If we don't now... 😡😡😡😡
There must be something surely:
If he is a Sporting player still - although they say he isn't - couldn't they just mutually end his contract & we can sign him?;
Or, what are the rules over loans?;
Or, clarifying that he is staying regardless of FIFA ruling & will play from Jan;
Or going to court over FIFA impacting upon his 'human right' to play - I've seen that card played against more dubious stuff...
There must be something...
This is the first post I've had to amend because of language 😂
posted on 6/9/17
I don't believe we had anything to do with playing hardball over Drinkwaters fee,personally at the end, I think Chelsea failed in all their other targets and Drinkwater was the last gasp signing to keep Conte placated which put us in the position of a last moment transfer.
Yes, we should have sorted Silva earlier and I also agree with others we should have gone with him anyway, Drinky would just have had to fight for his place like many others if he'd stayed
posted on 6/9/17
Comment Deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 6/9/17
Brilliant post Joby, completely agree with
everything you said. We are not a puny club that
sells as soon as the big boys cme sniffing. If they
seriously want our players, pay the value we want.
As for the loss of the family silxa and the lateness
of the transfer its fairly obvious to me that we only wanted silva if drinky went, and Chelsea didnt cme up with a suitable deal till they had missed ut on everyone else they wanted. We wernt going to go for Silva till we knew Dribky was going.
Of course that still doesnt excuse us being 14 seconds
late , if indeed that was our fault and yes we should have
made sure that the Siva deal was done (even if we thought it was) before selling Drinky.
The persn who gets hit the most in this is Silva nimself.
Its a world cup year and he would want to be in Porrtugals squad should they qualify. ( Then again Russia next summer hmmmm)
UTF
posted on 7/9/17
This is totally unfair on the player and I hope it gets sorted for common sense's sake.
I don't have a lot of sympathy for footballers normally, but it would be totally unmaceptable and cruel to stop a player being able to work for a tiny administrative delay.
If FIFA do that, they have no respect for the game, the players or the fans. Just continuing to protect their own interest. Like a World Cup in Russia that any right minded fan won't be able to attend!
posted on 7/9/17
Completely agree with the voice of reason - Mr Joby Fox.
And I agree with FIFA's stance. We were given a 2 hour extension and still failed to submit the details in time so we cannot expect them to bend the rules for us.
No doubt it was a race against time to pull off what would appear to be a great couple of deals for the club, but we didn't quite make it.
Tough on Silva and I guess he won't be happy but we must move on.
posted on 7/9/17
Can someone make a note in Rudkin's diary, the Transfer deadline in Summer 2018 has been moved to befoire the Season Kicks off for the Premier League.
Assuming he's not sent to muck out Nev's Camels before then of course!
posted on 7/9/17
Now I know what we were doing with silvagate
Doing a trial run for next summers transfer window
when we can sell a player after the season starts but
cant replace him. (always assuming we are still in the
prenier league)
There was method in Ruddys madness after all. Weve
got a head start on everyone else.
UTF
posted on 8/9/17
I am sure a brown envelope in the right hands would sort this out, it always has in the past apparently.