Wednesday 27 June 2007

The Fall-Back Position

I mentioned a couple of days ago that someone with good connections to the club had revealed that Carlos Tevez was very close to signing on for another year at Upton Park. The situation as it is understood now is that West Ham have agreed a deal with Kia Joorabchian and the player will sign it at the completion of the Copa America tournament in Venezuela, as long as no other interested club matches the full valuation (close to £30million) and wage demands in the interim. It appears Tevez's agents are using the new West Ham agreement as a fall-back position and are actively testing the market to see if a prospective buyer may be prepared to make a move. It is in light of this that the recent stories linking the Argentinian to both Arsenal and Inter Milan should be treated with a little scepticism. Both rumours originated from a freelance journalist stationed around the Argentina training camp and both were little more than flirtatious displays from Tevez's representatives. The intention was to elicit some kind of favourable response from arguably the only two clubs who might be remotely interested in taking the player at the grossly inflated asking price. In reality, a further full season of Premiership exposure (such as West Ham are offering) still remains the likeliest route to securing the huge financial pay out that Joorabchian seeks.

That Tevez should be at the centre of so much media speculation is readily understandable. Respected football journalist Gabriele Marcotti recently devised his list of the World's top 50 current footballers and placed the Argentinian at number eight, wedged snugly between Leo Messi and Steven Gerrard. Whatever the merits of such a exercise- a huge debate has been raging across the paper since the article was published- it is hard to imagine that many pundits would fail to include the player somewhere in their top 20. Intriguingly, with the exception of Juventus goalkeeper Gigi Buffon and South America based striker Rodrigo Palacio, Tevez was the only player in the entire list who did not feature in European competition of some description last season. To be mentioned in the same breath as Kaka, Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo, Eto'o and Totti without the mass market global exposure of the Champions League is a testament to the man's huge talent, and a major reason why so many people seem keen for the player to move to a bigger stage.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

if all you here is true about it costing the hammers 9 mill for one season surley we sould just pay the 30 mill and buy him outright.
i think it makes more sense

Anonymous said...

Got to agree if we were prepared to pay 17M for Bent surely 25-30M for Tevez is sound business by the time he's 26 he'll be worth twice that.

Anonymous said...

Thing is though if you was Kia then you would want to milk the golden tit for every last drop you could get. Why accept 25m-30m for Tevez now, from us, when you could put your prize asset in the Premiership shop window for another year and get paid £9m for the privilege. Theoretically, you could loan the player out for £9m a year for the next three seasons and generate the same kind of money without relinquishing control of the cash cow.

If you was Tevez, why would you even want to sign for West Ham permanently? Here is one of the best young talents in world football and we would be asking him to commit to a club that has no realistic chance of giving him Champions League football for the duration of his contract. I can see why he would spend another 12 months here because, in all probability, it will be the platform he needs to secure a move to a more glamorous club.

All that is to say is that even if West Ham would be prepared to buy the player outright (and remember only about 8 transfers of £30m have ever been made in the history of the game) I think it would be highly unlikely that Kia and Carlos would be interested in doing the deal. A season long is the only option open to us if we want to keep the maestro is my honest opinion.

 

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