Kind of a bittersweet feeling writing this if I’m honest. We had two offers come in for 2 of our players during the January transfer window. One was our Emirati 24 year old full back from Chennaiyin and I agreed on a price of 40k GBP for him which made them pull out real quick.
The second offer is something I could not say no to really. It was from Mumbai City FC for our Nigerian CB and I set a price for him so I rejected the first approach. Then for the second approach, this happened:
It was his mentioned price but it irritated me how the president went over my head for it.
Thankfully:
I managed to convince them to stop the offer. And in the end there was another offer that came through which I just could not refuse ultimately and it ripped my heart open even though this is a journeyman save where closeness with players isn’t really meant to be a big thing. So ultimately the final offer and the contract offer was like so:
He has been loaned back to us to finish the season out with us which I do appreciate. It was inevitable really given the fact that he was rated as a LEADING Super League player. I wish he could have spearheaded our ISL campaign next season(Fingers crossed unless a massive collapse happens)
So based on exchange rates I have sold Benjamin Fredrick for a fee of 2.12 Lakh INR which will climb up to 2.54 Lakh INR. For a free transfer you really couldn’t say no. And I have someone in mind who is already present in the club who will slot in easily. And also it frees up a foreign registration slot to give us an extra option further forward either in the midfield or attack for next season.
So far over January we have never faltered and we are one good result away from winning the I-League. What was once India’s top division has gone into the background after the ISL but miles are miles and this will give us 500 solid miles along with the win and goal miles for this season too.