Portuguese police want to question ManU about the signing of Bebe from Vitoria Guimaraes. Anyone know anything about this?
Only that it was a bizarre situation...Sir Alex signed him sight unseen for a large fee barely a month after he signed on a free for a Portugese club. Doesn't appear that Man U is implicated in anything directly, other than being dumb enough to spend 7.4m on a player who had a couple good preseason games and the approval of a former coach.
I think it's an investigation into the practices of agents rather than the club. They want to talk to united but as Schad says, they're not under suspicion themselves.
From the Guardian: "The judicial police national unit for combating corruption, part of the Justice Ministry based in Lisbon, is investigating the 11 August 2010 transfer, by which United paid that fee for a player whose only competitive experience was a single season in the Portuguese third division." Isn't that pretty similar to what Arsenal did with Oxo?! (putting ability aside of course)
I thought the investigation was because an agent received a large portion of the transfer fee? Believed to be upwards of €2m I read somewhere
In these days of internets and such, it's more surprising that an Ali Dia type situation slipped through the net here. As I recall, Man U spent lots of money on Bebe on the recommendation of the Portugal national coach, presumably without doing their research first as he had only recently signed on a free transfer. At Man U he was distinctly average. I take it that the agent is being investigated and the morons at Man U who sanctioned this deal are being asked to give evidence. Chamberlain is very different. Arsenal will have had all sorts of reports, stats and videos of him and weren't pushed by a crooked agent.
In fairness, the Portugal coach at the time was Carlos Queiroz, formerly Man Utd assistant manager, and obviously considered a trusted adviser by Fergie. Not quite the same as someone pretending to be George Weah.
