Bad week for the Dingles...

mani · 10-11-2007, 05:30

first their manager goes now their star 14 yr old!

bit crappy though - they find him bring him over and then he refuses to turn up to training. its like where were u languishing b4 mate? and with utd players tending to stay at old trafford i cant see that transfer fee coming in for a good 15 yrs! *L*

Quote:

Manchester United have beaten Liverpool and Chelsea in the race for 14-year-old Burnley striker John Cofie and agreed an undisclosed fee with the Clarets. Burnley rejected a reported £250,000 bid from Liverpool for Cofie this week.
But the German-born Ghanaian refused to return to training with the Clarets and they agreed he could leave Turf Moor.
Burnley have inserted a 25% sell-on clause in the deal, which also gives them first refusal on any loan deal and a future friendly match with United.
It will be three years before Cofie can sign professional terms at Old Trafford and the friendly game will take place within 12 months of that.
Cofie was signed by the Clarets last summer after he was spotted at a youth tournament in Germany.
"The player was unwilling to come back to Burnley so we didn't have a choice in keeping him here," Burnley operational director Brendan Flood told his club's website.
"He was going to go to one of the clubs chasing his signature and in the end, we all felt that Manchester United was the right option.
"He has a good future ahead of him and hopefully we can try and keep youngsters of John's quality at the club in future."

lancsdave · 10-11-2007, 11:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by mani

first their manager goes now their star 14 yr old!

bit crappy though - they find him bring him over and then he refuses to turn up to training. its like where were u languishing b4 mate? and with utd players tending to stay at old trafford i cant see that transfer fee coming in for a good 15 yrs! *L*

It's all down to the scourge of football..the Agent. At the end of the dayyou can't blame the lad himself, 14 yr old and he has three of the 4 biggest clubs in England trying to sign him on. Apparently it does happen quite a lot. Chelsea were fined a while ago for poaching youth players.

Apparently it's worth up to 1.3m to us if he makes the grade, which isn't bad for a player who has never actually played for our youth team.