Transfer balls: Manchester City miss out on Pogba and £45m bid for Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling
Transfer Balls: a look at today’s news on Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling and his move to Manchester City.
The Sun: “Sterling… spend it! And Raheem won’t be the only deal after Uefa lift FFP cap”
MANCHESTER CITY have been given the green light by Uefa for a £150million spree.
ESPN says that spree will be £100m. But, still, it’s a huge number.
Part of that spree is the likely purchase of Raheem Sterling, who, says the Sun, will cost City £45m.
The Times reports:
City’s second offer of up to £40 million for the England forward [Sterling] was rejected, but the club will be in a stronger position to raise their bid closer to Liverpool’s asking price of £50 million. Manuel Pellegrini is also confident of being able to sign Kevin de Bruyne, who is likely to cost £35 million, despite Wolfsburg wanting to offer their Belgium midfielder a new contract. The City manager has not given up hope of bringing in Paul Pogba, the Juventus midfielder.
Last season City were hit with a £49m fine and forced to submit a reduced Champions League squad of 21 players after breaching Uefa’s Financial Fair Play regulations. Those barriers to recruitments have now been removed. A Uefa statement read:
“We have lifted a number of restrictions on transfer activity, employee expenses and number of players in Uefa club competitions imposed on Manchester City.
“This is after the club reached certain targets towards break-even compliance as part of the ongoing monitoring of their settlement agreement.
“The lifting of restrictions is subject to ongoing additional controls and audits. The club remains under strict monitoring and has still to meet break-even targets and is therefore subject to some limitations in 2016.”
All media sources agree that City will Paul Pogba, Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling and Fabian Delph.
But the Manchester Evening News says Pogba as “agreed” to join Barcelona.
Juventus have told Barcelona that they will not sell Paul Pogba until next summer in what appears to be a blow to City’s hopes.
And in a meeting between officials of the two giant clubs in Italy, it is also reported that Barca made it plain that they will launch a bid for the player ahead of the 2015-16 season.
That clearly paves a way for a deal between the two giant European clubs for the France midfielder, who is the Blues’ main target in this transfer window.
Barca are under a transfer ban this summer after being found guilty by Fifa of breaching rules regarding the purchase of players aged under 18.
As for De Bruyne, who has a contract with Wolfsburg until 2019, the Indy reports:
Speaking to Sport1 earlier this week, Wolfsburg’s sporting director Klaus Allofs said: “Kevin has a contract until 2019, so the signal has already been sent out. He will stay with us. We’ve said we will look at his contract.
De Bruyne lifts the German Cup at the end of last season De Bruyne lifts the German Cup at the end of last season “The aim is to take into account financially Kevin’s extraordinary development. The best players should earn the best wages. We will make an offer to him and I think we will reach an agreement here very quickly.”
Surely there is no way Wolfsburg can beat super-rich City’s offer. Given news of City’s huge transfer kitty, the German club will know they can ask top dollar of any player.
Posted: 4th, July 2015 | In: Liverpool, Manchester City, Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
