Ba - 'special transfer window' officially open

Ba's special clause kicks in - taken From NUFC.COM

Ba wars: Newcastle star's available for £7m - but only until July 31.

Spurs and Chelsea are set to move for the striker, who's been given his own personal transfer window by a release clause

Demba Ba's £7million release clause can be activated from Thursday - for just two months.

Chelsea and Spurs are both keen, as Newcastle brace themselves for a stampede over the 27-year-old striker.

The release clause for Ba - who hit 16 goals for the Magpies last season - is well documented.

What has been less well known is that the clause kicks in on May 31 - and expires on July 31. After then, rival clubs will have to pay Ba’s full market value.

It means the hitman’s own private transfer window is now open with clubs able to pinch him for that bargain fee.

Newcastle have been desperate to keep a lid on the two-month opportunity in order to sneak the clause under the wire and then scrap it after the deadline.

But they now face a nightmare scenario of losing both their top frontmen with Ba’s strike partner Papiss Cisse interesting Manchester United.

Chelsea, with Didier Drogba having left on a free transfer, are keen on Ba. So too are Tottenham, who are unwilling to pay £10million for Emmanuel Adebayor, a striker his current employers Manchester City don’t want.

Even more galling for Newcastle is that, should they surrender Ba, they will not even get the entire fee from whoever signs him.

Newcastle have so far insisted they are relaxed about the clause. They have also claimed that they have been unwilling to renegotiate Ba’s £50,000 a week deal after just a year as it would set a dangerous precedent.

The truth, however, is that Newcastle have been powerless to restructure the deal.

It is Ba’s representatives that have refused to scrap the arrangement to ensure that their man pick up £2.5m from any potential transfer. Agents' fees will also run easily into seven figures for the marksman.

There have also been suggestions that rival clubs would be unwilling to take Ba because of the knee problem that led to Stoke deciding not to sign him from Hoffenheim in January 2011.

Ba, however, was top scorer for West Ham, whom he joined instead of Stoke back then. He has also featured in every game for which he has been available for Newcastle since he moved there last summer.

Indeed, the 27-year-old was arguably the best striker in the Premier League during the first half of the season with 16 goals.

His Man of the Match performance in Newcastle’s 3-0 demolition of Manchester United was one of the performances of the season. In that match, Ba scored one goal and tore the United backline apart with a devastating display of strength and power.

When Senegal international team-mate Cisse arrived in January however, Ba was pushed out to the left and his goals dried up and instead it was Cisse who shone.

Ba, who has three years left on his contract, has so far been relaxed about his Newcastle future, insisting he is happy to stay. His future, however, is set to be taken out of his hands within hours.

The Mail ran a similar version of the same story, claiming that Ba stands to take £2m of the £7m transfer fee.

Expect much more of this throughout the close season, but with the Ba situation evidently loaded against United the real attention switches to the future of Cisse - when the sums involved could make any Ba deal look like very small beer indeed.

It's worth recalling the "difficult seller" quotes from MD Derek Llambias back in March - especially in the light of our brief flirtation with Champions League qualification:

"We’re not saying we are not a selling club. The reality is when we get the price in we have to sell our best players.

"It’s like being a collector and you collection is getting bigger and bigger, the wage bill will be bigger.

"You have to filter stuff off to get a better quality build. You can’t just hold on to it. It’s not really the right way, from a business point of view I would have to trade - at what level, I don’t know.

"We are difficult sellers, we will get the best price, we have proven it already...we will continue to trade as we are and if somebody knocks on the door it is about the price.

"It is about the player, do they want to stay. They’ll say ‘I want to stay but what if I can get this?’”

"We would love to be in the Champions League, the extra £30m would help us get where we would like to be. We like to see things grow.”



Really hope he stays, but starting to sound very ominous.

 

Got to say how ironic they print it on the day his transfer clause apparently starts. Also he said on twitter he was looking forward to playing for us.

 

Hes probably looking forward to that £2m payout he gets too tbh.

 

Ultimately, I think it's out of his hands. The agents rule the game now..I'd be more worried if Cisse left tbh.

 

We'll just have to wait and see I suppose. I can see him and Cisse still being here in August. Ba has to ask himself where he will stand in terms of the clubs in question. How much game time will he get at Man U, Chelsea, Spurs. If Spurs sign Adebayor, he'd be a sub at all three. What will be will be and we'll move on regardless.

 

If he wants to go he can go. For me, of our front 3, ba is the one I would lose if I had to choose one. If we could get luk de Jong in his place I'd be tempted by that imediately. the kid is class. We may even replace him with an out and out winger if pardew sticks with the 3 up top. Marveaux could play there if he stays fit but ba leaving won't be the end of the world.

 

Yawn, the clause isn't 7mill, its 10 minimum, but because of an existing agreement with Hoffenheim, and his cut, we only get 7. Stupid journalists, they should all be mauled by wild hogs.

 

It's the Daily Mirror, I used to buy it, until one day in particular when I looked at the front cover and saw just how bad they are.

 

Well wait and see