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Manchester City's attempt to corner the transfer market and use every method possible to gain an advantage over Manchester United has seen them replace their neighbours in a partnership deal with Sporting Lisbon that will give them first option on signing players from the club that produced Luís Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo.
City have moved in after learning that United's arrangement with Sporting had expired and that relations between Old Trafford and the Estádio José Alvalade have never been fully repaired since the clubs fell out two years ago over the Portugal international Miguel Veloso.
Luís Vicente, a Portuguese lawyer who represents Figo, has been working on a deal which should be announced in the next few weeks and will see the world's most financially endowed club moving ahead of the Premier League champions when it comes to cherry-picking some of Portuguese football's brightest young players.
Sporting have a reputation for developing outstanding young footballers, Ronaldo being the most obvious example but the list goes much further than that and includes the former world player of the year's fellow Portugal internationals Nani, Ricardo Quaresma, Miguel Veloso and João Moutinho. City have already put in place a deal to take Tobias Figueredo, a 15-year-old midfielder rated as one of Sporting's more promising players, as part of the chief executive Garry Cook's pledge to bring elite youngsters into the club academy and develop them as Champions League players of the future.
The move is being seen at City as another step in their ambitions to make sure they compete for the best players at every age range, with Cook making a point since coming into the job of trying to establish a strong working relationship with clubs who were previously out of City's range. Vicente has been given the official title as head of partnerships, with the brief to arrange more deals of this nature around Europe.
Sir Alex Ferguson's feelings on the matter are not clear but the United manager has always cited the relationship with Sporting when explaining why Ronaldo moved to Old Trafford in 2003 when Real Madrid, Barcelona, Arsenal and several others also wanted him. Under the terms of the agreement, Sporting had to inform United of any bids and offer them first refusal.
That privilege has now been lost to the club Ferguson has described as "noisy neighbours" but the official stance at Old Trafford is that they were happy for the agreement to expire as they considered it "too restrictive", and that having such a relationship may have affected how Benfica viewed them in possible transfer negotiations. United say they have been gradually phasing out many of the tie-ups that were introduced when Peter Kenyon was their chief executive, with clubs as diverse as Wollongong Wolves. However, they intend to maintain the link with Desportivo Brasil in São Paulo after a concerted effort to find the best young talents in Brazil and they will also keep the tie-up with Royal Antwerp, which is primarily used to give youth academy graduates from Old Trafford first-team experience in the Belgian league.
United's relationship with Sporting was badly affected in December 2007 when Carlos Queiroz, then the assistant manager at Old Trafford, expressed his admiration for Veloso and the Portuguese club's president, Filipe Soares Franco, responded angrily by accusing Ferguson's No2 of unsettling the midfielder and disrespecting the agreement between the clubs.
Sporting were so incensed they put a statement on their official website describing Queiroz, their former manager, as "persona non grata" and saying the club did "not want to waste time on this person". It led to a peacemaking operation involving Ferguson and the chief executive, David Gill, and Sporting said at the time that "this decision will not affect the good relations with Manchester United."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2...porting-lisbon
City have moved in after learning that United's arrangement with Sporting had expired and that relations between Old Trafford and the Estádio José Alvalade have never been fully repaired since the clubs fell out two years ago over the Portugal international Miguel Veloso.
Luís Vicente, a Portuguese lawyer who represents Figo, has been working on a deal which should be announced in the next few weeks and will see the world's most financially endowed club moving ahead of the Premier League champions when it comes to cherry-picking some of Portuguese football's brightest young players.
Sporting have a reputation for developing outstanding young footballers, Ronaldo being the most obvious example but the list goes much further than that and includes the former world player of the year's fellow Portugal internationals Nani, Ricardo Quaresma, Miguel Veloso and João Moutinho. City have already put in place a deal to take Tobias Figueredo, a 15-year-old midfielder rated as one of Sporting's more promising players, as part of the chief executive Garry Cook's pledge to bring elite youngsters into the club academy and develop them as Champions League players of the future.
The move is being seen at City as another step in their ambitions to make sure they compete for the best players at every age range, with Cook making a point since coming into the job of trying to establish a strong working relationship with clubs who were previously out of City's range. Vicente has been given the official title as head of partnerships, with the brief to arrange more deals of this nature around Europe.
Sir Alex Ferguson's feelings on the matter are not clear but the United manager has always cited the relationship with Sporting when explaining why Ronaldo moved to Old Trafford in 2003 when Real Madrid, Barcelona, Arsenal and several others also wanted him. Under the terms of the agreement, Sporting had to inform United of any bids and offer them first refusal.
That privilege has now been lost to the club Ferguson has described as "noisy neighbours" but the official stance at Old Trafford is that they were happy for the agreement to expire as they considered it "too restrictive", and that having such a relationship may have affected how Benfica viewed them in possible transfer negotiations. United say they have been gradually phasing out many of the tie-ups that were introduced when Peter Kenyon was their chief executive, with clubs as diverse as Wollongong Wolves. However, they intend to maintain the link with Desportivo Brasil in São Paulo after a concerted effort to find the best young talents in Brazil and they will also keep the tie-up with Royal Antwerp, which is primarily used to give youth academy graduates from Old Trafford first-team experience in the Belgian league.
United's relationship with Sporting was badly affected in December 2007 when Carlos Queiroz, then the assistant manager at Old Trafford, expressed his admiration for Veloso and the Portuguese club's president, Filipe Soares Franco, responded angrily by accusing Ferguson's No2 of unsettling the midfielder and disrespecting the agreement between the clubs.
Sporting were so incensed they put a statement on their official website describing Queiroz, their former manager, as "persona non grata" and saying the club did "not want to waste time on this person". It led to a peacemaking operation involving Ferguson and the chief executive, David Gill, and Sporting said at the time that "this decision will not affect the good relations with Manchester United."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2...porting-lisbon
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