i think you may just find the fee to be around E2Mill (euro's/ £1.76 Mill ) that's the opinion of the french press !!!

A steal, proves my point.

So much for Grayson laughing off West Ham's bid of 2.5 mill and saying they would have to treble that etc.

Yet more hot air from Grayson.

I think the low transfer fee is down to Gradel himself. His transfer request will have forced Leeds hand into accepting a bid that they may otherwise have rejected. And I don't believe you can blame Gradel's agent advising him to take such actions. Gradel has his own mind and a lot of the blame must be put at the door of his now considerably bigger mansion

Yeah French sites are saying around 2million euros...

http://www.mercato365.com/infos-clubs/saint-etienne/saint-etienne-gradel-a-signe-737335.shtml

I don't think he was bothered about going to West Ham or Fulham, but when the french clubs started showing a serious interest he probably demanded a transfer request... He's got a lot of family in France after all.

Gradel has his own mind and a lot of the blame must be put at the door of his now considerably bigger mansion
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Gradel will have been on around 5-6k, take off the tax and whilst it massive money to most, its not enough to secure his future.

Now if he gets a 4 year deal on 3 stroke 4 times as much, its life changing.

His family future is secure.

Its not greedy, it looking after your family.

If Leeds wont pay the going rate, you cant blame gradel

I don't imagine a French football team, even though they are in the top league, will pay anything like the inflated wages of an English premier league club due to lack of sponsorship and global interest. I very much doubt his wages will have increased that much

I also don't think St Ettiene will have offered him much more money than he was earning at Leeds, they are lower-mid table French club who never qualify for Europe, so it's no good comparing them to Lyon or PSG.

It's a lifestyle choice as much as anything else. St Ettiene is a beautiful city and he's close to his family again.

LIW no one is blaming Max, good luck to him

Lashed

Gradel has his own mind and a lot of the blame must be put at the door of his now considerably bigger mansion
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Have I misread that

I agree LarrysBargainBucket. I'm making the point that blame must be placed at Gradels door because he put in a transfer request. When Beckford did it, a lot of fans turned against him, it seems to have not batted an eyelid with Gradel. Why couldn't he have asked for one in the summer? Why did he say he wanted to stay? I used to think it was down to money and ambition, but in my opinion his ambition had to be questioned moving to st etienne in France.

Yep I've read the €2mil mark not good really

LIW here we go again wum wum wum you have said on here many times you do not blame a player for lining his own pocket

& why was he forced into making an xfer request ?
Cos we didn't want to pay to keep him

HIS IS / WAS our best player by a long shot, wold we have finnished where we did last year without him ?

* where would we have finnished we did last year without him ? probably 12th 13 th ?

Sorry but I disagree. I think its in the clubs best interest to keep fees in house.

If other teams know how much you have made it gives them an extra bargining chip when it comes to player negotiations, and that pushes up prices.

And before anyone jumps down my throat for supporting Bates or saying that Bates will never spend money anyway I mean I agree with this rule in general, not I agree with it in light odf our present situation

Lashed

I think you've misread my comments or something mate

Mattyp

We barely pay cash for any player.

Plus what happens if the reported fee, is alot higher than the actual, other clubs could think we have more money than got

Keeping transfer fees in house i agree with you on Matty ..... the principle makes sense.

It's just we've seen this time and time again, yet never seem to see any of the undisclosed stuff being reinvested in the playing squad - it all just seems to evaporate into the ether ........

Fans don't mind being kept in the dark if things are going well ......

Do people think Gradel wasn't aware of St Etienne's interest before now?

Gradel could have sunmitted transfer request weeks ago but didn't.

I genuinely believe he wanted Leeds to try and keep him.

Leeds hand was not forced.. They did not have to sell Max the same way did not have to sell Beckford despite a request being handed in.

They simply do as they have said, ie he's not for sale end of the matter.

I think that what we are seeing however is that St Etinne had been in discussion with Leeds for a while (hence their comments) and that this was the most they would pay and Leeds realised they were running out of road.

Why if we only sold him for so little didn't we wait until the January transfer window we would then be inaa position to have a good idea if we would reach the playoffs /.no I think bates is skint and needs all the money he can muster to keep is company afloat

leeds60, when you can'yt get finance cos you went into admin you need cash to fund your property development.

That is all the football team is now, a cash generating vehicle for Bates property development plans.

Jonty funnily enough I had this convo with me dad, re: the mourlieas transfer from Liverpool to Chelsea, the last couple of days on the transfer window is rife with tapping up and illegal activity, it's the only way some if these deals can get done so quickly

lucas, yes same in my line of work, weeks of negotiating, deal always happens at end of quarter though.

All speculation, no proof, no idea of the truth, no trust. How sorry we are if you all think like this.

I trust that the facts are very different from what most fans guess. We are a business and Bates is a shrewd businessman who knows what he is doing.