De Gea’s transfer foul-up: Who is to blame?

kayode OGUNDARE
@kaybaba99

One of the weirdest transfer cock-ups in recent football history occurred last Monday when, inexplicably, David De Gea’s move back to Spain which seemed to be done and dusted failed to materialize against expectations.

Many people, including myself, had resigned to the fact that the Spaniard is gone back home. I was already writing a piece to commend the young man for his services to United and to wish him well in his future endeavours.

The man himself had travelled to Spain on Sunday in the expectation that he would undergo a medical once the deal had been concluded on Monday, be presented to the public on Tuesday before joining up with the national team for international duty. He even bought a new suit for the occasion, according to Willem Ballague, a Spanish journalist.

Keylor Navas, Madrid’s goalkeeper who was supposed to be offered in part-exchange for De Gea, had reportedly travelled to England and was waiting for the deal to be announced so that he could also do his medicals in a Manchester hospital.

His father, Felix Navas, believing that the deal was certain had given a potentially damaging interview where he slammed the Spanish media of waging a campaign to bring De Gea back despite knowing that his son is better.

He said: “They (Madrid press) want to have a Spaniard as their Real Madrid goalkeeper, no matter how he plays. They know that my son is the best, but for pride they will not accept it. Keylor tells me he has the support of all. Marcelo, Cristiano Ronaldo, James and all the players love him because he’s very humble and quiet.”

Now that the move failed to materialize, Navas must find a way to mend fences with the media or else he would have a torrid time at the Santiago Bernabeu.

United also appeared to have given up on De Gea when the club sanctioned the departure of Anders Lindegaard to West Brom in expectation of the imminent arrival of Navas.

And it must be said that Madrid also expected the deal to be done when they organized a medical and public presentation for the player they had chased for the past nine months.

So, I ask, where did it all go wrong? Last Tuesday, after the transfer window had officially closed and it was sure the deal was not going to be done, Madrid released a 10-point statement blaming United and the English side responded with their own side of the story to, according to them, provide some clarifications.

I have published both statements so that you can read and form your own conclusions about what you think actually happened. Please quickly read both statements (see boxes) before we proceed.

Real Madrid’s 10 point timeline over the David de Gea deal, released on Tuesday afternoon:

1. Man Utd agreed to start negotiations yesterday [Monday].
2. Real Madrid initiated conversation.
3. Man Utd would only do deal if it included Navas.
4. Both clubs agree deal & Madrid send documents to Man Utd at 12.39pm.
5. United replied at 8.39pm asking for some changes which Madrid agree to immediately.
6. Madrid send contracts to Man Utd at 10.32pm & wait for Man Utd to send them back signed.
7. Man Utd agree deal with Navas at 10.53pm and then contract sent to Navas to sign.
8. Man Utd logged in on TMS to log details of De Gea deal, not Navas at 11pm, deadline point in Spain and simultaneously send contracts to Madrid. Madrid receive documents at 11.02pm and tries to access TMS but is closed down.
9. 11.26pm TMS invites Madrid to introduce details of De Gea because the transfer deadline is next day. Madrid, in case there was room to get done, decide to send contracts to league even though they know deadline has passed.
10. Madrid have done everything they could at all times for deal to take place.

Manchester United responded with this statement on Tuesday evening “to provide some clarification with the following facts”

1. Manchester United did not seek contact from Real Madrid for the sale of David. David is a key member of our squad and the club’s preference was not to sell. No offer was received for David until yesterday.
2. At lunchtime yesterday, Real Madrid made its first offer to buy David. A deal was agreed between the clubs, which included Navas being transferred to Old Trafford. The deals were dependent on each other.
3. In the last several hours of the process, with Navas at the Real Madrid training ground, Real Madrid were controlling the documentation processes of David, Navas and Real Madrid. Manchester United was in control only of the documentation of Manchester United.
4. Manchester United sent transfer documents for both players to Real Madrid at 2042 BST. David’s documentation was returned by Real Madrid to Manchester United without the signatory page at 2232 BST.
5. At 22:40 BST, minutes before the deadline, major changes to the documentation came through to Manchester United which immediately put the deals at risk. Only at 2255 BST were the documents that are needed to cancel David’s contract received by Manchester United from Real Madrid.
6. At this point Navas’ documentation was still not returned by Real Madrid.
7. At 2258 BST, the transfer agreement was sent back by Manchester United, uploaded onto TMS and accepted – all before the deadline.
8. It is our understanding that the deals couldn’t happen because:
– Real Madrid didn’t upload David’s documents onto TMS in time (Manchester United did)
– Real Madrid didn’t upload David’s documents to the Spanish league in time, per reports it seems some 28 minutes after the deadline

9. The fact that Manchester United filed the papers on time was acknowledged by the Football Association, who offered to support that claim in any discussions with FIFA. The Club offered this assistance, as well as its own timestamped documents to Real Madrid but they have chosen not to go down this route.

10. Manchester United acts appropriately and efficiently in its transfer dealings. The Club is delighted that its fan-favourite double Player of the Year, David de Gea, remains a Manchester
United player.

BETWEEN BOTH PARTIES AND THE TRUTH

It is trite knowledge that there are always three sides to every story which, in this case, are Madrid’s views, United’s perspectives and then the truth. So what have I condensed from what both parties said from their statements?

1.      Despite all the noise made about the transfer beginning from last January, Madrid DID NOT make an official bid until Monday, 31^st of August, 2015 which was less than 24 hours to the close of the transfer window.

2.      United admitted that they sent documentations regarding the transfer (which included Navas) at 8.42pm. If it is true that Real Madrid sent the initial paper work at 12.39pm as they claimed, then it means that it took United eight hours to return the initial documents to Madrid. Knowing that it was transfer deadline with events taking place at a frenetic pace, one is bound to think United DELIBERATELY punished Madrid for leaving things that late.

3.      Madrid claimed they received communications from United at 8.42pm with modifications but they didn’t return the documents until 10.42pm, two hours later and less than 20mins to the close of the window (transfer deadline is 11pm in Spain). Knowing that they would still need to proof for error or last-minute changes in the returned documents, counter-sign and then upload to TMS for the transfer to become valid, I think Madrid left it too late.

4.      United claimed to have uploaded De Gea’s documents on to the TMS in time while blaming Madrid for not doing same failed to take into cognizance the fact that there was a clear ONE HOUR difference in transfer closure between Spain and England. United uploaded De Gea’s documents at 10.58pm, one hour and two minutes before deadline but just 120 seconds for the Spanish team to do the same. That, in my book, was unfair.

5.      Both clubs continuously talked about receiving fax documents and having to wait for the other party to respond before other steps could be taken so I wondered what happened to picking up the telephone to speed things up. I can count on my fingers the number of deals that have been concluded by phone and I mean mega-deals.

I recall that Eric Cantona’s move to Manchester United was done when the Leeds United chairman Bill Fotherby telephoned his Man United counterpart Martin Edward to inquire about the availability of defender Dennis Irwin. Sir Alex, according to him, happened to be in the chairman’s office at the time and overheard the conversation. Fergie prompted his chairman to ask if Cantona was available and that was how a deal was struck for the Frenchman. As it transpired, Irwin who was the subject of the initial phone-call, did not leave United until 10 years later.

United and Madrid have a long history of mutual respect and shared affiliations with players such as David Beckham, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Gabriel Heinze, Cristiano Ronaldo and lately Javier Hernandez (loan) all having moved from Old Trafford to the Bernabeu. One would expect both clubs to agree on a deal without rancour but there’s a sense of ego involved in the De Gea deal, if you ask me.

The Spaniards look down on the guys making transfer decisions at Old Trafford and the Madrid president alluded to this in a radio interview when he said: ‘I think what they lack is experience. It happened before with [Fabio] Coentrao, exactly the same. And it happened with Ander Herrera and Athletic Bilbao. They have a new team and they lack experience. We have missed out on players before, Franck Ribery and Patrick Vieira for example, but what is surprising is that someone wants to do a deal and only starts the process 12 hours before. It’s the inexperience of the new people in charge. We have worked with them [United] before, with Peter Kenyon and David Gil and with Sir Alex Ferguson. We still have a good relationship with Manchester United but this is exactly the same as what happened before with Coentrao and Herrera and we thought they would have learned from what happened in the past. If it happens to the same team what happened with Pedro and with Otamendi then it points to a lack of experience.‘

WHAT NEXT FOR DE GEA?

This kind of talk and mindset is putting off the United hierarchy and they would gladly offer the goalkeeper a bumper deal on whatever he currently earns or wait for him to run down his contract at the end of the season.

Either way, De Gea will remain a United player at least until January when United could hope to make some money off his sale if Real Madrid comes up with another offer or another team with enough money and a desperate need for a world class keeper.

Between now and then, whether De Gea regains his number one position will be entirely up to him and how he chooses to respond to this adversity. He could shake it off, post some impressive performances and good attitude to work and make it impossible for the gaffer to overlook him and when Sergio Romero makes the kind of error that he made at Swansea again, he would be ready to pounce and take back his place.

Or, alternatively, he could choose to be morose and sulk about what has happened and let that affect his game. He could choose to become difficult and hard to work with, knowing that he has only this last season to play before he’s free to leave. However, the danger in that kind of mindset is that who can say with any degree of certainty that Real Madrid would still be interested in doing a deal by next June. One year is a very long time in football and stranger things have happened.

So, beautiful people, having heard from both sides and with my own opinion of what happened in this transfer saga, who do you think is to be blamed for putting De Gea (and I must commend him for his reasonableness and level-headedness during this period) in this difficult situation? Who do you think is at fault? Real Madrid? Man United? Me? Do have your say and see you next week, God willing.