Quote:
Originally Posted by Danthomas2005
I didn't know that.. I thought they had to pay a compensation package to get him in the first place..
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Nope. Originally he was going to sign with Barca but after talking with Wenger and knowing how Wenger handled young players he decided against signing a professional contract and was free to join whoever he wanted. When he finally broke into the team Barca decided they wanted to get some free money and decided to file a suit against us, but in the end all we paid was £100K.
In recent times they have tried to tie in first refusal with Arsenal so that if he ever leaves they get first option but we always say no.
In the Henry transfer we could have gotten £22M if we gave them first refusal rights and we could have gotten £18.5M for Hleb but again we said no on the first refusal.