Ander Herrera is a Manchester United Player!

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charleysurf said:
Its business. Bilbao would have done a deal if United offered more. I'd like to see some examples of mad Basques hanging players who were caught in transfer tugs. They seem to have a funny image on here.
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Well, offcourse. They woulnd't have had much of a choice, would they?
 
DevilRed said:
To play the devils advocate and conspiracy theorist, any chance we purposely "pulled out" of this deal because Fellaini eventually came through?

I was actually a bit skeptical we were willing to pay close to 60m for 2 midfielders! Its not like we've even sold Anderson and then of course there is Cleverley and Carrick still at the club.
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I'd doubt it, surely if you were looking for a backup to the Fellaini deal, you'd have a similar player in the wings, and try to keep your business more private, as you don't look the ejit when it all falls apart.
 
akash02 said:
Why are Bilbao so stubborn? I understand the fact that money itself is not that big a draw given the small talent pool available to them but I would have thought their actions could make young Basque players think twice before joining them in the future
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Don't underestimate Basque nationalist pride. A club that flies that particular flag will be a magnet for players such as you describe.
 
MrMarcello said:
I hadn't heard Everton got him on loan. Why wouldn't Barca loan him to a La Liga club?
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Yeah they sure did - for a year, possibly 2. On a loan deal - the more he plays the less it costs Everton - more play less pay!

From memory, I think they wanted him to experience a different & competitive league / culture, for that European experience & Martinez pulled some strings to get him to Everton obviously!
 
Isn't the Spanish tax even further complicated by Athletic's tax breaks for Basques playing for them?
 
Cant feckin believe it, but Talksports Durham & Goughie are getting stuck into United about the shambles of the transfer window (fair enough), but more importantly - "The Imposters" story :lol:

Seriously, are we lot the only folk that know anything about this feckin shenanigans from yesterday & that they're bloody Sporting Tax Lawyers - not Man United "Imposters" :lol:

There's legs in this one yet :wenger:
 
The tax thing is just a stall I think, not a roadblock. It was mentioned a lot back when the Thiago shenanigans were ongoing, but it didn't seem too important as we had plenty of time to go...
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
If we give it to him as a loan is it classed as income?
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Not sure in Spanish law. In other parts of Europe loans/gifts over a certain value are taxed as income if they are not from a family member. Its always difficult to avoid the evil taxman.
 
Red Hand Devil said:
Cant feckin believe it, but Talksports Durham & Goughie are getting stuck into United about the shambles of the transfer window (fair enough), but more importantly - "The Imposters" story :lol:

Seriously, are we lot the only folk that know anything about this feckin shenanigans from yesterday & that they're bloody Sporting Tax Lawyers - not Man United "Imposters" :lol:

There's legs in this one yet :wenger:
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Well, a lot of the donkeys on TalkSport have feck all to talk about most of the time anyway, so this gives them something to do. Most of them love bashing United anyway. We still have the same squad as last season, plus Fellaini. People forget that Fellaini is a useful enough player.
 
The Google ads have switched from offering me a new Galaxy Ace to offering me a place at the Real Madrid University for Post Grad studies in sport law.

I doubt Herrera will say much tomorrow apart from, United seemed like a wonderful opportunity, I'm sorry if I've disappointed anyone, and then committing himself to Athletic.
 
Earthquake said:
Perhaps after experiencing the Martinez deal, they thought they knew exactly what would happen, and could breeze through quickly this time.
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Yeah that's what I was thinkin man, but they've their own dedicated department that deals with Sporting Tax issues for sportspeople & agents all over Spain - they're at this craic quite a while by the looks of it.
 
Ubik said:
The tax thing is just a stall I think, not a roadblock.
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My understanding is the tax thing was effectively a non-issue as it was an international transfer and the same lawyers who handled Martínez would know that. One minor issue would be the development fee being added to the release or not (couple of million, basically) but the major issue seems to be this idiotic idea whereby the release clause can't be activated if Athletic refuse to receive the money. It's rather pointless isn't it? The lawyers would have known about that "bureaucratic problem" as well.

The two things that seem critical to me are:
  1. If we really wanted him, why not pin Atheltic into a corner saying that was the problem? Nope, we chose to talk about the lawyers not having the authority to represent us, etc. Weird, unless we didn't want to burn Herrera's bridges at Athletic once it looked unlikely. Would we accept looking like fools for that? Don't think so, it must really be a case of us being unwwilling to meet the release clause.
  2. Which takes us to the insistence that the release clause wasn't value. Why the feck did we engage in this then, at all? "Sorry Ander, we are interested but you are not worth the money anyone with half a brain would know this required". It also indicates we won't be getting him in January either as it would mean paying what we are publicly stating is too much. Utterly, utterly pointless.
Possible underhand tactics or not, whichever way you look at it we are acting like fecking amateurs and are deserving of what the Spanish media is saying: that we are just throwing punches in the dark hoping something good will come out of it.

We've been owned all Summer, every Chairman out there must be loving the prospect of sparring with Ed Wood to show him up for the bufoon he is. He's like a rabbit in headlights.

Barca couldn't have spelt it out more clearly, Urrutia is laughing his arse off that a mighty CL top club has been embarassed after approaching one of his men, Kenwright showed Moyes yesterday how a proper Chairman gets his club to come out on top against those "in the big leagues", and even Dave Whelan got in the act getting a loan off us and immediately moving on to improving his deal for McCarthy.

Eddy is quite simply the village idiot of the football world, no two ways about it.
 
Earthquake said:
Woodward should know how to deal with this stuff himself, tbh.... Isn't this like exactly what he does/used to do?
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Its complex and detailed stuff, so he probably would not know the exact details. He should be smart enough to hire or contract somebody that does know what they are doing though.
 
Livewire1974 said:
Its complex and detailed stuff, so he probably would not know the exact details. He should be smart enough to hire or contract somebody that does know what they are doing though.
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Perhaps have a word with these 3 amigo fellas when there's more than 8 hours on the clock, say perhaps the day of the fist bid, or crazily enough, have this all planned in advance...
 
I just received a text saying that if Herrera put in a transfer request and we met the clause we would not have had to pay the extra tax? Anyone know if this true?
 
This is more Athletic's fault than ours.

We never made the bid public, they did. That's why Ander is in such an difficult position right now.

They also have more experience of Spanish release clauses than United. So if they knew the transfer would be too complicated to push through at he last second, they should have killed the talks before the media got wind of it. It takes two to negotiate and Athletic could have refused to participate so close to the window closing. The only possible outcome seems to have been an unsettled player they could never sell - and that's what happened.
 
starman said:
I just received a text saying that if Herrera put in a transfer request and we met the clause we would not have had to pay the extra tax? Anyone know if this true?
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There never was any tax - the tax is a red herring or a trap for clubs who fail to employ proper legal advisors.
 
Dante said:
This is more Athletic's fault than ours.

We never made the bid public, they did. That's why Ander is in such an difficult position right now.

They also have more experience of Spanish release clauses than United. So if they knew the transfer would be too complicated to push through at he last second, they should have killed the talks before the media got wind of it. It takes two to negotiate and Athletic could have refused to participate so close to the window closing. The only possible outcome seems to have been an unsettled player they could never sell - and that's what happened.
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Have you stopped for a moment to think that's actually a good outcome for them? If you run a club on the premise that you only have Basque players getting your best players taken away is significantly more disruptive than for any other club. Surely you would want clubs to wake up and smell the coffee that taking a player off you is an uphill battle? What better way than putting the mighty Manchester United to shame?

They played along and made sure our failure received as much coverage as possible. Herrera will take it on the chin, buckle up and get on with things regretting he set sights further afield in the first place.
 
antohan said:
My understanding is the tax thing was effectively a non-issue as it was an international transfer and the same lawyers who handled Martínez would know that. One minor issue would be the development fee being added to the release or not (couple of million, basically) but the major issue seems to be this idiotic idea whereby the release clause can't be activated if Athletic refuse to receive the money. It's rather pointless isn't it? The lawyers would have known about that "bureaucratic problem" as well.

The two things that seem critical to me are:
  1. If we really wanted him, why not pin Atheltic into a corner saying that was the problem? Nope, we chose to talk about the lawyers not having the authority to represent us, etc. Weird, unless we didn't want to burn Herrera's bridges at Athletic once it looked unlikely. Would we accept looking like fools for that? Don't think so, it must really be a case of us being unwwilling to meet the release clause.
  2. Which takes us to the insistence that the release clause wasn't value. Why the feck did we engage in this then, at all? "Sorry Ander, we are interested but you are not worth the money anyone with half a brain would know this required". It also indicates we won't be getting him in January either as it would mean paying what we are publicly stating is too much. Utterly, utterly pointless.
Possible underhand tactics or not, whichever way you look at it we are acting like fecking amateurs and are deserving of what the Spanish media is saying: that we are just throwing punches in the dark hoping something good will come out of it.

We've been owned all Summer, every Chairman out there must be loving the prospect of sparring with Ed Wood to show him up for the bufoon he is. He's like a rabbit in headlights.

Barca couldn't have spelt it out more clearly, Urrutia is laughing his arse off that a mighty CL top club has been embarassed after approaching one of his men, Kenwright showed Moyes yesterday how a proper Chairman gets his club to come out on top against those "in the big leagues", and even Dave Whelan got in the act getting a loan off us and immediately moving on to improving his deal for McCarthy.

Eddy is quite simply the village idiot of the football world, no two ways about it.
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This.

The garbage we've spouted about the release clause not being value is painful.

antohan said:
Have you stopped for a moment to think that's actually a good outcome for them? If you run a club on the premise that you only have Basque players getting your best players taken away is significantly more disruptive than for any other club. Surely you would want clubs to wake up and smell the coffee that taking a player off you is an uphill battle? What better way than putting the mighty Manchester United to shame?

They played along and made sure our failure received as much coverage as possible. Herrera will take it on the chin, buckle up and get on with things regretting he set sights further afield in the first place.
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This too.
 
Hunter's view on it, for whatever it's worth:

So while Real Madrid were getting their man from the Premier League, in Gareth Bale, Manchester United couldn't prise theirs from La Liga.

The story of Ander Herrera and the fact that he remains an Athletic Club player now that the transfer market is closed is easier to tell than some people will make it.

Who the three guys who turned up at the Spanish League offices in Madrid might be a curious twist (they turned out to be lawyers for Laffer Abogados, who also worked on the Javi Martinez to Bayern Munich transfer) but they bear no real relation to the heart of the matter.

First, Herrera has all the quality, all the drive, all the technical skills to be a dominant figure in Manchester United's midfield and, in due course, a captain.

Second, I know that he firmly wanted the deal to take place.

Third, he resolved not to follow Javi Martinez's stance and force his way out -- partly because there was very little reaction time for him and his respect for Athletic was sufficiently high that either United did the deal efficiently and hyper-quickly, or else there would be no deal.

Finally, United moved too late.

I know for a fact that David Moyes remains a very firm appreciator of Ander's talents. One of the barriers to him pushing United very hard to pay the full €36 million was that he, quite sensibly, worried about how little personal scouting he'd been able to do on the player over the past few months. That process will now begin to ramp up and, who knows, there may be a time in the next two markets when the United manager is remorseless in making sure that a deal is struck.

Moyes had a view on what value he placed on the deal right now and that's the territory of a smart man. Buy the right player at the right price in the right way -- not in a hurry at the tab end of a transfer window.

What transpired, however, is that United weren't equipped to take a firm decision early enough about how hard to go in for Herrera and, once the bean-counters at the top of the club did indeed decide to pay €36 million, there was insufficient corporate savvy about how to get that done.

Indeed there remained, for too long, an idea that Athletic President Josu Urrutia would simply roll over at the last minute and drop his price. Those who thought that clearly haven't been following the episodes of Javi Martinez to Bayern or Fernando Llorente to Juventus.

United's executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward may prove to be a whizz at transfers in due course -- the transfer market is full of misinformation and treachery -- but this summer United lacked the know-how, experience and the cojones needed to cut through the rubbish and either get good deals done early or convert unmissable late opportunities if, unfortunately, they present themselves at the eleventh hour.

Dare I say that United need a director of football, an expert in how these things are achieved quietly and efficiently, to join Mr Woodward's staff?

I'm sure the United manager will be reviewing exactly how well his needs have been served by those who are charged with seeing through the transfer business this summer. For the new manager to achieve what he was brought in for he's going to need better support than he's been given this during this fraught transfer window.

http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/laliga/id/691?cc=5739
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Ubik said:
Hunter's view on it, for whatever it's worth:
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Fair comments from him I think, with not much speculation.

I'm automatically resistant to the term Director of Football. However if we have to recruit a football exec to negotiate football business, and we don't undermine our manager in the process, then I'm sure we can come up with a job title.
 
jojojo said:
Fair comments from him I think, with not much speculation.

I'm automatically resistant to the term Director of Football. However if we have to recruit a football exec to negotiate football business, and we don't undermine our manager in the process, then I'm sure we can come up with a job title.
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If Edward Woodward doesn't get clued up quickly we'll need a Director of Football. I've no idea what he was up to when David Gill was here but he clearly didn't learn as much about how the football world works as Gill did when he was working under Kenyon.
 
Is it true that Moyes said that Herrera wasn't worth the release clause or something on those lines?

An Arsenal supporting colleague just said so. I refuse to believe it
 
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