I think the way that German release clauses work is that you negotiate with the player first, and then you pay the contract release fee to the club. So Real probably had the contract all but signed with Sahin, then just stumped up the cash for the release fee and he was all theirs - nothing anyone else could really do at that point. Similar thing with Ozil, although we had opened negotiations with him first Real came in with a higher salary offer and that was that.
can we not just try and assemble the dortmund midfield of last year. Even though we already lost out on sahin, who would have been perfect and 5 times cheaper!
