Monday 26 July 2010

Gazzetta: Balotelli joins MCFC

We're approaching endgame in our next transfer. Gazzetta dello Sport has a story this morning saying that Mario Balotelli has agreed to join MCFC, and that the deal is done.

It reports the deal being tied up on Saturday night, for an initial fee of €30million (£25m), potentially rising to €35m (£29m) based on goals, trophies and so forth. He is on a five year deal of €4m (£3.3m) per year. I don't know if this is gross or net (apparently the Italian press reports salaries after tax). But it's a lot.

The deal ought to be announced today (Tuesday morning at the latest) and on Wednesday he will fly from Inter's base in Philadelphia to Atlanta, where we are due to play Club América on Wednesday night. He could even play against Inter on Saturday night.

7 comments:

Gratian said...

Is it just me or are things starting to get a bit silly now?

clevblue said...

Haha, yes they are. He's here he's not, its £80million, it's £100million,City billionaires are buying up any players they consider a threat. Boateng is key to our challenge, then it's Yaya, now it's Kolarov. I notice we are not ruining football any longer, that's gone quiet. Wait till we lose a game - they'll be all over us

Blue Phoenix - Moving on up! said...

Its getting exciting so now all we need is Torres to move to us as well and Milner.

I have been through the squad trying to predict who will be in the 25 man quad and who might be leaving.

Surprisingly I have only come up with 4 players who I think should be sold no matter what. We are then with 11 home grown players, 14 foreign players in the 25 with another 6 down for under 21s and 3 out on loan

Any chance you can write an article on this? Its great fun trying to predict it.

Home grown players:
Joe Hart (ENG)
Stuart Taylor (ENG)
Joleon Lescott (ENG)
Wayne Bridge (ENG)
Adam Johnson (ENG)
Gareth Barry (ENG)
Michael Johnson (ENG)
Craig Bellamy (WAL)
Shaun Wright-Phillips (ENG)
Nedum Onuoha (ENG)
Micah Richards (ENG)

Foreign players:
Shay Given (IRL)
David Gonzales (COL)
Jerome Boateng (GER)
Kolo Toure (CIV)
Pablo Zabaleta (ARG)
David Silva (ESP)
Patrick Vieira (FRA)
Yaya Toure (CIV)
Nigel de Jong (NED)
Vincent Kompany (BEL)
Stephen Ireland (IRL)
Roque Santa Cruz (PRY)
Carlos Tevez (ARG)
Emmanuel Adebayor (TGO)

Under 21s:
Alex Tchuimeni-Nimely (ENG)
Dedryck Boyata (BEL)
Greg Cunningham (IRE)
Javan Vidal (ENG)
Abdisalam Ibrahim (NOR)
Vladimir Weiss* (SVK)

Loanees:
Gunnar Nielsen (FAR)
Shaleum Logan * (ENG)
Kelvin Etuhu * (NGR)

To be sold:
Robinho
Jô * (BRA)
Felipe Caicedo * (ECU)
Javier Garrido (ESP)

Anonymous said...

Now his agent is denying that a deal has been made and will be done in the next few days. wtf?

Gratian said...

At some point Sheikh Mansour is going to give his bank a ring and tell them his credit card has been nicked and someone is going mad with it.

budakon said...

Blue Phoenix.
Good to see someone working out the premiership squad list.

I broadly agree with what you have but I believe that Stevie Ireland and Shay Given may qualify as homegrown since they served 3 years in England before turning 21. Shay may just miss out on this by a few months but not sure of the exact rules.

Wouldn't be surprised to see Etuhu and Logan sold either since they do not appear to have made any impression in the last couple of years.

And I guess there will be another 2 or 3 on the way out to accommodate any more signings as well. Most probably two out of Ireland/Bellamy/Ohuha/Santa Cruz.

What has been starting to irritate me in the last week are the number of tabloid stories stating that we have a 1st team squad of 39 players and will need a wholesale clearout of 14 first teamers. Another case of the blindly ignoring the facts (that about 7 of these 39 are under 21 and are not covered by the new rules) just to fit the nice sensationalist story.

budakon said...

...and I sincerely hope that the latest stories that we will sell De Jong have no substance. That really would be a big loss since he is our only quality out and out defensive midfielder.