The most complicated transfer wrangle of the season threatens to rumble on, with internal divisions at Manchester City throwing Benjani Mwaruwari’s on-off transfer from Portsmouth into even greater confusion.
The Premier League expects the clubs to come to a compromise and to renegotiate the £7.6 million deal in the next 24 hours, but differences of opinion behind the scenes at City have raised more doubts about whether the transfer can go through.
Benjani was left in limbo after the transfer window closed on Thursday, with City stating that the deal had not been completed because of his late arrival in Manchester that evening. As revealed in The Times on Saturday, there were three problems with the deal: a concern arising from his medical examination, which, although he did not fail it, revealed a problem with his right knee; City were also uncomfortable with the number of agents involved in the deal and felt that the paperwork needed far greater scrutiny than time allowed; to complicate matters further, Benjani’s signature was missing from at least one of the forms that were submitted to the Premier League.
Sven-Göran Eriksson, the City manager, remains eager for the deal to go through, but others at the club feel that it would be irresponsible to allow it to be completed in anything like its present form. An intermediary is understood to be working on a “compromise” that would mean a renegotiation of the original £7.6 million deal, but while the Premier League expects such an agreement to be reached either today or tomorrow, differences of opinion behind the scenes at City mean that nothing can be guaranteed. A legal challenge is feasible if the club are forced into a deal with which they are not happy.
Although the transfer window is closed, the Premier League would in theory be prepared to ratify a revised deal, given that all parties had previously reached an accord and submitted the relevant forms in time. Portsmouth are confident that the league will turn a blind eye to the missing signature, given that the deal appeared to have been concluded “in spirit”.
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If the deal is to be renegotiated, though, there are differences of opinion on how this will happen. One source indicated last night that the projected fee would be “comparable” with the £7.6 million valuation that the clubs agreed on Thursday, but with a larger portion of the fee contingent on appearances that he may make for City. However, another source suggested that the entire deal would have to be renegotiated, even raising the possibility that it be turned into a loan move if the Premier League would agree to this.
Caught in the middle of it all is Benjani, the league’s joint-third highest goalscorer, who spent Thursday and Friday nights in Manchester waiting for the clubs to sort out the various issues. “I’m still hopeful that the move will go through,” he said over the weekend. “I want to play for Manchester City. I’m hoping everything can be sorted out so that I can continue my career with Manchester City.” Benjani, 29, could have made things a lot clearer had he not missed two flights to Manchester on Thursday and had a third cancelled and a fourth delayed. In the event he arrived at the club’s training ground at 11.10pm, 50 minutes before the transfer window closed, with City feeling that the numerous complications made it impossible to complete the deal in time.
Harry Redknapp, the Portsmouth manager, believes that an agreement will be reached, having signed Jermain Defoe from Tottenham Hotspur as Benjani’s replacement. “Hopefully the deal will get sorted on Monday,” Redknapp said. “I think he will end up as a Manchester City player. That seems to be what I hear.”
Questions were raised yesterday about the precise nature of Defoe’s move to Portsmouth, which, it has emerged, was in fact a loan rather than the “long-term deal” trumpeted in a club statement at the time. A Portsmouth spokesman confirmed yesterday that the transfer “was done as an initial loan because of time restraint” but that “the full documents will be signed and registered this week. This is a standard method when you have little time.”
Defoe became an instant hero at Fratton Park with goal on his debut for Portsmouth against Chelsea on Saturday. Benjani may still be dreaming of doing likewise for City against Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday, but whether or not he joins the club remains unclear.