Liverpool FC Forum

by **skatesy** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 8:45 pm

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N158611080127-1324.htm

There's a lot of speculation about whether you will complete a £17million deal for Javier Mascherano. Are you prepared to endorse that transfer?

Absolutely.

- That was right from the horse's mouth.

by **lakes10** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 8:51 pm

skatesy wrote:http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N158611080127-1324.htm

There's a lot of speculation about whether you will complete a £17million deal for Javier Mascherano. Are you prepared to endorse that transfer?

Absolutely.

- That was right from the horse's mouth.

yes but it still might be in the summer, he did not say it was going to be next week did he.

if its in the summer he would be at another team by then.

by **Bammo** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:28 pm

lakes10 wrote:
skatesy wrote:http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N158611080127-1324.htm

There's a lot of speculation about whether you will complete a £17million deal for Javier Mascherano. Are you prepared to endorse that transfer?

Absolutely.

- That was right from the horse's mouth.

yes but it still might be in the summer, he did not say it was going to be next week did he.

if its in the summer he would be at another team by then.

No he won't. He legally cannot talk to another team until Liverpool have declined to offer him a deal.

by **account deleted by request** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:32 pm

Bammo wrote:
lakes10 wrote:
skatesy wrote:http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N158611080127-1324.htm

There's a lot of speculation about whether you will complete a £17million deal for Javier Mascherano. Are you prepared to endorse that transfer?

Absolutely.

- That was right from the horse's mouth.

yes but it still might be in the summer, he did not say it was going to be next week did he.

if its in the summer he would be at another team by then.

No he won't. He legally cannot talk to another team until Liverpool have declined to offer him a deal.

Thats boll0x mate he can talk to ANY team from February AND sign a pre contract for next season.

by **The Manhattan Project** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:34 pm

According to the BBC George Lucas has bought Everton.

All the players will be sold and replaced with computer generated imagery.

CGI Carsley is SOOO lifelike.

by **metalhead** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:35 pm

True s@int, because if we don't offer before the window closes then he is gone.

by **The Manhattan Project** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:39 pm

Manhattan just had a surreal image in his head of Mascherano hanging out of a window while Hicks is holding onto his leg.

by **metalhead** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:52 pm

The Manhattan Project wrote:Manhattan just had a surreal image in his head of Mascherano hanging out of a window while Hicks is holding onto his leg.

Manhattan has a funny imaginary brain

by **Bammo** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:58 pm

s@int wrote:
Bammo wrote:
lakes10 wrote:
skatesy wrote:http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N158611080127-1324.htm

There's a lot of speculation about whether you will complete a £17million deal for Javier Mascherano. Are you prepared to endorse that transfer?

Absolutely.

- That was right from the horse's mouth.

yes but it still might be in the summer, he did not say it was going to be next week did he.

if its in the summer he would be at another team by then.

No he won't. He legally cannot talk to another team until Liverpool have declined to offer him a deal.

Thats boll0x mate he can talk to ANY team from February AND sign a pre contract for next season.

Kia Joorabchian did an interview with Football Focus in September basically saying Liverpool had 1st option on him until the end of June. Unfortunately the BBC only have the clip of him talking about takeovers and I can't find a transcript anywhere.

This is taken from the Times and shows we have a June deadline:

Times

Under the terms of the agreement Liverpool have the option to buy the player outright before the 30 June 2008 deadline.

As far as I understood it, players are only free to talk to other clubs if their contracts are expiring and they become free agents. Masch doesn't become a free agent in the summer, his registration reverts to MSI meaning they can sell him to any club.

by **account deleted by request** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 10:07 pm

Bammo wrote:
s@int wrote:
Bammo wrote:
lakes10 wrote:
skatesy wrote:http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N158611080127-1324.htm

There's a lot of speculation about whether you will complete a £17million deal for Javier Mascherano. Are you prepared to endorse that transfer?

Absolutely.

- That was right from the horse's mouth.

yes but it still might be in the summer, he did not say it was going to be next week did he.

if its in the summer he would be at another team by then.

No he won't. He legally cannot talk to another team until Liverpool have declined to offer him a deal.

Thats boll0x mate he can talk to ANY team from February AND sign a pre contract for next season.

Kia Joorabchian did an interview with Football Focus in September basically saying Liverpool had 1st option on him until the end of June. Unfortunately the BBC only have the clip of him talking about takeovers and I can't find a transcript anywhere.

This is taken from the Times and shows we have a June deadline:

Times

Under the terms of the agreement Liverpool have the option to buy the player outright before the 30 June 2008 deadline.

As far as I understood it, players are only free to talk to other clubs if their contracts are expiring and they become free agents. Masch doesn't become a free agent in the summer, his registration reverts to MSI meaning they can sell him to any club.

Benitez in £17m race to hang on to Mascherano
EXCLUSIVE by ASHLEY GRAY - More by this author »

Last updated at 23:05pm on 24th January 2008

Liverpool have only a week to complete the signing of Javier Mascherano or risk losing him at the end of the season.

Mascherano has become a central figure in the battle behind the scenes between Rafa Benitez and the club's American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

The Argentina midfielder is free to negotiate his future with other clubs from February 1 under the terms of his 'loan' arrangement.

The player, signed from West Ham almost a year ago, is 50 percent owned by businessman Kia Joorabchian's sports investment company MSI and has a £17million buy-out clause in his complicated Anfield contract, which expires at the end of the season.

Benitez desperately wants to keep the player, who has become a key performer in the holding role. Mascherano wants to stay at the club but at £17m he is not seen as an 'impact signing' by some members of the Liverpool board.

Mascherano, who is frustrated that the deal has not been completed, told Argentina's Radio La Red: 'I would love to stay here. I have tried and I've adapted to the city very well.'

Liverpool, struggling to find further investment to strengthen the team while talks about the refinancing deal for the new stadium have been going on, were still trying on Thursday to sell Momo Sissoko to Juventus to help fund the Mascherano deal.

'Javier wants to stay,' a friend confirmed from Argentina on Thursday night, 'but it is looking less likely every day. Liverpool must make up their minds and decide if they want him. Right now it looks as if he might go — and he is very reluctant to do that.

'He may not be considered as an impact signing by some, but the manager knows the qualities he brings to the team and every team needs his type of player in the modern game. Javier believes it is time for him to settle now. The rest is up to Liverpool.'

It has been noted that while Manchester United's owners did not delay in signing Michael Carrick and Owen Hargreaves to play the holding role, Liverpool's own American supremos have not moved as quickly to land Mascherano.

Liverpool may be running out of time but they still have first option on a player who has 35 Argentina caps at the age of 23.

The list of alternative clubs is growing with Barcelona, Manchester City, Juventus and Tottenham among those who have expressed an interest and are waiting for encouragement from Mascherano's aides.

The £17m fee was agreed under the terms of Mascherano's move from West Ham. His Argentina agent Walter Tamer is believed to favour a move to Juventus and warned: 'Liverpool have not made any offer at all to buy Javier and he is likely to go to Italy next season.'

by **The Manhattan Project** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 10:08 pm

We should move quickly.

Sell (not loan) Momo to Juventus.

by **Bammo** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 10:16 pm

I won't quote all that or we'll end up with 1 post a page

It's becoming (only) a bit clearer but we still have this:

Liverpool may be running out of time but they still have first option

No matter who he talks to, if we offer £17m then theoretically he should have to come to us. The mistake we (and when I say we I mean a certain Mr Parry) is this:

Because we have no agreement with Masch, he can turn us down, kick up a fuss and force MSI to sell him to another club. Kia Joorabchian said in the interview (which is now lost in the BBC archives) that he couldn't understand why we didn't do a deal with Masch at the time. What we should have done is given him a contract when we first got him on loan. Then, if we decided to exercise the buy clause, Masch would have no alternatives.

If he's truthful when he says he wants to stay then we should still get him.

Here's a question for you Saint (and everyone else), given that we have first option on him, does that mean Masch can negotiate with other clubs but not sign a contract with them? In theory he shouldn't be able to actually sign until the 30th June deadline has passed in case we offer him a deal.

by **account deleted by request** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 10:16 pm

BTW Liverpools option to buy Mascherano is not worth the paper it is printed on. The FA and Parry in their wisdom forgot or neglected to put in a length of contract stipulation. So in effect if we forced him to sign under the option he could sign for 3 days as easily as 3 years.

Just another happy thought

by **account deleted by request** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 10:19 pm

He can sign a pre contract with another club (same as Kewell can) but hopefully it wont come to that. He wants to stay, Rafa wants him to stay so surely a deal can be made.

by **Bammo** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 10:24 pm

So basically the 30th June deadline is worth nothing except the date his registration reverts to MSI. I can't believe we didn't make him sign a contract last year. If we had we could have got him on cheap wages. He was desperate for football and had done nothing of note in the Premier League.

Now he's shown his class and is in demand. We'll probably have to double what we would have paid him. Well done Mr Parry.

We should keep him, particularly given Hicks' support for Rafa's targets as he's said in the new interview with Radio 5 (and we all know how trustworthy he is :;):

)

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