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  • 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 correctArsenal 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 laterfor 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 medicalbut 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 youre asking €45 million for a player

  • who’s, at best, a squad playerand 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 truerelease

  • clause”.

  • Pere Guardiola was the agent,” Law explains. “He was very forthright, his position was

  • really based on a verbal understandingnot 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 daythis 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 thinktime 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.

There are many reasons that transfers break down.

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