I've seen a few links about this: Leeds finally acting early when it comes to contracts (2 years early to be exact) hopefully he accepts and we stop worrying about clubs trying to buy him http://www.leeds.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=245867
Probably on the same paltry wages offered to Johnson. Bates needs to realise he's not competing with teams in league 1 anymore or foot of championship in terms of holding on to players. Clubs with big coffers are now sniffing and our seemingly pathetic pay structure needs to be reviewed. We now have added tv exposure against far better opposition and our top players continue to shine. It's only natural they're going to constantly attract attention. No point in being a big club and offering small club wages, we won't ever keep top players that way. Next two weeks will be a defining time for us. New contracts needed for Snoddy and Max and at least three quality signings to go with that
And what were those "paltry" wages we offered Johnson? He said he wanted parity, parity with who exactly?
It's a little different with Snodgrass than with Johnson though. Snodgrass is rated as our best player, so I'd imagine that the club would offer him sizeable wages. Whereas Johnson wanted equality with the highest paid players in the squad, but the club didn't rate him as deserving those wages. It's like with Becchio - the club rated him as one of our best players, and obviously our valuation was the same as his. Snodgrass will resign if he gets offered a new contract. I'm not too confident on Gradel though...
In the summer match program it was said that "a player" was offered a new contract of £7, 000, an increase on their current £3, 000 contract. He and his agent turned it down and wanted a £11, 000 contract. We can only assume that this was Johnson. The Johnson case was a little different, it is nothing but greed to refuse a £4, 000 increase when you're only a starting player because we're weak in that area. To refuse because you can't get a £9, 000 increase is ridiculous.
It's not ridiculous if that's what you can get paid by another club, which is exactly what's happened.