I think it was but I cant come up with a logical reason. What harm is there in leaving the window open? If clubs do or dont want to disrupt their squads then let them get on with it.
Because if they get the £3.5 million off us they won’t get the £6million apparently on the table for him.
Why not? We have a contractual obligation to pay them, whether we can buy the player is separate. Why wouldn't they try to get both fees?
Id guess that if the £3.5 million was upheld he would have to be classed as our player. Registration or not he would be ours to sell. Alternatively, they take him back and sell him for £6milion and pay us back any instalments made on the £3.5million. We would surely go to CAS if forced to pay £3.5million for something we couldn’t own. And, if the EFL have our financial stability at heart, they wouldn’t surely watch us sink further into the mire of their own doing.
Even with ignoring weekends how can a panel of three take 9 days to come up with a decision? They must have been talking to outsiders.
Because if we pay for him, he’s not their player to sell, they can’t sell him twice. Either they take him back and sell him to someone else, or we’ve spent £3.5m on a player we can’t play for a year.
Leeds were forced to pay the fee to RB Leipzig for Jean-Kévin Augustin even though he never actually joined Leeds permanently. It is possible we still pay the €3.8 million for Puerta and he isn’t our player.
"On 6 October 2020, Nantes announced the signing of Augustin on a two-year deal, being signed as a free-agent, with both RB Leipzig and Leeds providing written permission, and relinquishing any claim to Augustin's registration" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Kévin_Augustin#Loan_to_Leeds_United
It’s relevant to us because both situations were loans with obligations to buy. Leeds argued that due to COVID delaying the season, they didn’t technically achieve promotion until July whereas the contract stipulated it was valid if they achieved promotion by 30th June. FIFA sided with RB Leipzig and said the 30th June date was merely an end point of the football season in England and Germany and under the ‘spirit of the rules’, the conditions were met to activate the obligation to buy. I think City would have a strong case to make to CAS that the EFL are not acting within the ‘spirit of the rules’ as both deals for Puerta and Laalaoui were confirmed before the embargo and fee restriction came into force. The 1st July date is merely the starting point of the football season and we were placed under a temporary 48-hour embargo on 1st July and then a three-window fee restriction on 3rd July.
The stupidly of the EFL, embargo us, which prevents us from paying fees to other clubs, which is exactly why we’re embargoed in the first place. The obvious fix, sell them to Maribor, register them there, loan them back to Hull City, with two fingers up at the EFL
I’m pretty sure we can still sell them? After they signed their contracts they are employed by Hull City, registering them to play in the EFL is a different issue.
