There are many reasons that transfers break down.
“The case of Nuri Sahin,” former Arsenal transfer negotiator Dick Law explained to
The Athletic, “(was) classic Arsene Wenger.”
With Alex Song poised to join Barcelona in the summer of 2012, Arsenal were looking to
sign the Turkish midfielder on a season-long loan from Real Madrid. “I knew the agent”,
explained Law, “we got the player side done and he was in Madrid, and so I went down,
met with Jose Angel Sanchez, the Real Madrid managing director. We hammered out a deal…
and then Arsene started stalling.”
In fairness, Arsenal were operating in a difficult financial landscape. Hit hard by the 2008
property market collapse, they were understandably cautious. “The way I always characterised
it is that we just couldn’t afford to make a big mistake,” remembered Law.
A loan deal for Sahin, however, was not a huge commitment. After three weeks of delays,
Real Madrid were unhappy and ready to pull the plug on the deal. Law flew to Madrid to
try to appease them, but on his arrival for a meeting he was told that the Spanish club
had agreed a deal with Liverpool. Not only that, but it was on better financial terms.
Wenger refused to meet Madrid’s demands, and Sahin joined Liverpool. It left the Arsenal
fans understandably disappointed, given that the interest in Sahin had been public for
some time and he was then being snatched away at the last moment.
It was a feeling with which they had become familiar.
There is an old adage among football fans that you shouldn’t believe a transfer rumour
until you see the player on your club’s official website. Sometimes though, even that
proves faulty, as in 2001, when goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek was so close to signing for Arsenal
that his profile appeared on the club site’s squad page.
Dudek had travelled to London for talks with Wenger and agreed personal terms. When a Feyenoord
spokesperson was asked if their goalkeeper was on his way to Arsenal, he replied: “That
is correct — Arsenal have said it. We are waiting for our president to confirm with
Mr David Dein”.
Dudek himself can pick up the story. “I came back to Feyenoord with hope that the
clubs would agree a fee, but Feyenoord wanted £10 million. Wenger was only willing to give
£7 million,” the Poland international later explained. Wenger opted for Ipswich Town’s
Richard Wright instead, and Dudek joined Liverpool two months later — for less than the £7
million Arsenal had been offering.
In 2004, video game developers Konami were so confident Arsenal would complete the signing
of Hatem Trabelsi that they included him in the club’s line-up for Pro Evolution Soccer
4. In fairness to them, they had good reason to believe that the deal was done.
Ajax director Arie van Eijden had emphatically told AD Sportwereld, “It is nice that this
case has been dealt with. Just a few minor details must be handled before Arsenal will
declare it official. We have had an agreement with Arsenal for several days but we had to
wait until Arsenal and the player reached an agreement.”
All that was left was Trabelsi’s medical — but that highlighted some concerns. Arsenal
then tried to restructure the deal, but to no avail. Instead, Wenger waited a few months
before signing a summer triallist who had impressed against Ajax in the Amsterdam Tournament:
the unknown Emmanuel Eboue.
Law, who worked as Wenger’s transfer negotiator from September 2009 to February 2018, knows
better than most how fragile transfer talks can be: “Even when we had signatures on
papers, I knew that we had to go through our registration process and you just never knew
what the FA could come with, or FIFA could come up with at the last minute.”
The summer of 2013 was particularly eventful. Arsenal fans remember it for the record purchase
of Mesut Ozil and the doomed pursuit of Luis Suarez, but before all that the club were
on the verge of signing another Real Madrid player, Argentina forward Gonzalo Higuain.
The player’s father even told Fox Sports Latin America, “We managed to get permission
from Real Madrid to negotiate face to face with Arsenal. Fortunately, I will soon be
able to watch my son play in the Premier League.”
As Law confirmed, finding an agreement with the player was not the problem. “I went
to Madrid and Jose Angel was always a gentleman and always very up-front. He said, ‘Please,
speak to the player and get that piece done’ — and we did.
“Then, when I sat down with Jose Angel, he said, ‘We want €45 million for the
player.’”
It was a huge fee at the time. Arsenal’s transfer record was a deal for Andrey Arshavin
at less than half that price. Law protested, but Real Madrid stood firm.
“I said, ‘Jose Angel, I’m sorry but I’m missing something here. You know, he’s
had at least four or five managers while he’s been here and he’s never been a starter
for any one of them’. He started talking about the quality of the player and the person,
and I said, ‘Listen, I get all that but you’re asking €45 million for a player
who’s, at best, a squad player… and he said, ‘Well, that’s our price.’”
The deal was dead in the water. Napoli, flush with cash having sold Edison Cavani to Paris
Saint-Germain, swooped in to take Higuain.
That led Arsenal to pursue a deal for Suarez. Their bid of £40 million plus another £1
has been widely derided, but Law insists all parties understood there was no true “release
clause”.
“Pere Guardiola was the agent,” Law explains. “He was very forthright, his position was
really based on a verbal understanding — not a written understanding, because the actual
written clause as we know was not a buy-out clause; not even close to a buy-out clause…
But Pere insisted that he had a verbal agreement that Liverpool would negotiate in good faith
if a certain number was exceeded. He believed they’d listen to offers above £40 million.
The rest is enshrined in history. Arsenal thought they finally had the centre-forward
they wanted on deadline day. While fans went wild over the imminent Ozil deal, behind the
scenes Law and others were also trying to negotiate a permanent deal for Chelsea striker
Demba Ba. They got so close that Arsenal staff prepared graphics for use on the club website,
but they never saw the light of day.
“I was in Paris, at rest, and Arsenal representatives called me to tell me it was going to happen,”
Ba remembered in conversation with France Football. He travelled back to London expecting
to be an Arsenal player, but by the time he arrived the deal was off.
The suggestion was that, concerned by Ozil’s arrival, Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho was wary
of potentially strengthening a rival. “Their manager just changed his mind,” said Law.
“I understand Mourinho’s decision as a coach, but as a player, you are frustrated,”
Ba added.
In his final season with the club, Law worked on the ill-fated bid for Thomas Lemar. That
was a transfer saga that ran through a whole summer. Arsenal had started negotiating in
June, only for Monaco’s valuation to prove prohibitive. Then at 10.30pm, two days before
the window was due to close, Law received a call from Vadim Vasilyev, the Monaco CEO.
With little time to spare, Monaco had decided they would do a deal.
Law met with Wenger and Ivan Gazidis, and they tried to set in motion a sequence of
events that would see Alexis Sanchez leave Arsenal for Manchester City and Lemar move
to London. The issue, in this instance, was time. Lemar had been called up by the France
national team and was due to play that night.
“By the time we were able to get in front of the player on match day — this is 3pm
— the player says, ‘This is too much stress for me. I’m just going to stay at Monaco,’”
Law revealed. Arsenal were a little taken aback: they had already agreed personal terms
with the player, and even offered to increase their proposed terms. Nonetheless, Lemar needed
more time to think — time Arsenal didn’t have.
Doing deals mid-season, in the January transfer window, can be even more problematic. Arsenal
are expected to be active in the forthcoming window, but the fans should do their utmost
to curb their excitement until everything is signed and sealed.
After all, they should know from bitter experience just how delicate these deals can be.