Bitter Burke Pill to Swallow

So I had planned to write a transfer rumour roundup on some of the rumours doing the rounds about the mythical striker we are set to be signing. Instead has come the Oliver Burke bombshell.

Burke - celebrating a Forest goal
It feels extremely deflating. At the end of the day he was always likely to leave, but I hoped it would be next year after an excellent year with Forest. Again I can understand a huge offer has come in and the club has to listen. It’s a club record fee for a 19 year old. And that’s the key here, it’s a huge fee and in football money talks.

The part that grates is that we had been assured that players were not going to be sold. Fawaz made assurances the club would not sell, but lo and behold we have sold the clubs major asset. Again we have had that before, Fawaz making assurances before promptly selling. It still annoys though.

And again like before it appears this is all happened behind the managers back. Like Fawaz did to Pearce with Lascelles and Darlow, the player has been sold by the chairman at his decree. Reports suggest, and I stress suggest, that both Montanier and Pedro Perreira were not in on the deal, and have both been surprised at the fee taken for the Scottish winger. That many think the figure is lower than it could/should be speaks volumes. Even more, Burke felt surprised the club accepted an offer, he didn't feel the need to leave, but has accepted no doubt a bumper deal with cash rich Leipzig.

What will be important is what this means for the club as a whole. That money has to be reinvested. We all knew that we had a £1million budget to play with this season essentially in transfer fees, but now we have a bounty that we could utilise. Whatever we do or not is another matter.

Burke- Signing for Leipzig
And I stress that because of numerous things I have heard or read about what is happening behind the scenes. The al-Hasawi family have cut the fund to Fawaz; the club basically have to survive now without the windfalls we got before. Hence we were getting a new investment fund (which was a takeover but Fawaz wouldn’t say). Now the takeover has dragged on and on, to the point that Fawaz has to find some funds from somewhere, and has taken the first offer that surpassed his valuation.

What I have heard is that the takeover has dragged on because the Greeks are unhappy with Fawaz, and his non-payment of numerous bills, especially whilst the takeover has been going on. Fawaz has apparently been cutting corners and not investing, and Evangelos Marinakis isn’t happy that he has potentially being left with Fawaz’s bills.

That is what is dragging on as these details get thrashed out. Now Burke has been sold, will the Greeks fully pull out as the clubs major asset has gone? My gut feeling is that Fawaz has got distracted with the deal taking a long time and has sold to pay the bills for meantime, taking the money as a severance before packing up to run the Kuwaiti FA.

I remember feeling really happy after a 2 goal win against Leeds at home once before, when Fawaz sacked O’Driscoll and we got that first indication we had a chairman who was a loose cannon. It appears we have come round to that point again. Post Leeds we are dealt a huge blow by the Chairman’s actions.

Modern football is rubbish.

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