Man Utd do us a favour?

Comments (3)

Football is frequently a funnier business these days than ever before (for funny read dubious). I was interested in the post the other day about the Lucho Gonzalez bid being a stalking horse to the benefit of MSI, thus smoothing the way for us to acquire Manny Fernandes. That theory makes a great deal of sense; Moyes likes proven players not speculative punts, so why would he ignore Manny whom he knows and can slot straight in, in favour of a player who is very talented but untried in this country?

With the Fernandes transfer almost complete, another thought occured to me. Our close current relationship with Man Utd seems to have attracted a lot of criticism (maybe it smacks too much of Bush & Blair!!), but I wonder if, behind the scenes, Man Utd may have just done us a big favour. Here's why:

We all know the Tevez transfer from West Ham to Man Utd has been incredibly complex, time-consuming and costly. It has taken months to sort out, even for Maurice Watkins, the Man Utd director who is reputed to be the finest legal mind in the country on transfer law. Having completed that deal, the Fernandes transfer has been relatively quick and straightforward, seemingly, completed in under two weeks.

With our finances as they are, I'm not sure that we are buying Manny outright at this point (as Man Utd have not bought Tevez). Instead, the various legal loopholes have been circumnavigated in such a way to allow Man Utd to acquire Tevez for a certain amount at this point and then complete the deal later for a further fee. Does this not sound like the way Everton like to do business recently?? (ie, you don't need £5M to buy a £5M player ? the classic BK soundbite).

The BBC certainly think so, claiming Everton 'are only buying 50% of the player from Benfica, with third party companies owning the rest ? however, they will have an option to buy out the rest of the player after a fixed period.'

So, if Everton are managing to complete this deal in the same way, I very much doubt its Bully's business acumen that has figured this out so quickly. More likely BK has rung David Gill and the necessary info has been passed across to allow us to follow the exact same path as Man Utd have and in time to get Manny now.

We may not have liked the Rooney transfer and had suspicions that the deals for Phil Neville and Tim Howard had strings attached. But one thing is certain, that 99% of Evertonians are delighted at Manny's capture in this transfer window and I suspect we might just need to thank our friendship with Man Utd for that.

Just a theory!
Tom Hadley, Hampshire     Posted 17/08/2007 at 19:37:42

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