The normally quiet town of Wolfsburg erupted today as reporters from all over Europe descended on the press conference scheduled to announce the arrival of new signing Emre Can – a transfer that has become hot news due to the controversial three-way deal which saw Can arrive at the Volkswagen Arena.
Instead of arriving to cheering fans – there to witness the arrival of the young German international – the Wolfsburg manager Greg Owen was hounded by press as his car arrived at the stadium.
Meanwhile Emre Can was safely tucked away at the Wolfsburg training ground where he appeared with his new Wolfsburg shirt ahead of his first match for Die Wolfe, which in the suspension absence of centre back Robin Knoche is expected to be this Thursday.
Much of the questioning at the press conference focussed on the issues surrounding the transaction of buying Can, rather than his place in the Wolfsburg squad, or his potential for either Wolfsburg or Germany.
Reporter: “So how do you explain the third-party ownership of Can?”
Owen: “This was not a case of third-party ownership – in fact the SMFA system of transfers does not even allow such a thing. There’s no way to give another club money without getting a player in return, so how do you even end up having third-party ownership?”
Reporter: “So how Wolfsburg manage to buy Can from Arsenal, yet sell Kurzawa to Bayern Munich in exchange?”
Owen: “Look – when we negotiated to bring Gotze to Wolfsburg from Bayern, we also agreed in principle to an exchange of Kurzawa for Can in the other direction. This was on the understanding that Can was transferring from Arsenal to the Allianz in mid-October. What Gursiman at Bayern organised with Michael Bowes at Arsenal was that the transaction would be a three-way one, where Can came directly to Wolfsburg and Kurzawa went to Bayern at the same time as the original exchange between Arsenal and Bayern for Thiago occurred. Simple really. Isn’t that clear?”
Reporter: “But doesn’t that mean you’re breaking the SMFA’s transfer rules, by side-stepping the transfer ban period?”
Owen: “Look, yes, maybe it does. But manager’s break the SMFA transfer rules every day. For example, managers do 3-for-1 deals where they exchange a third player for one in a cash deal to make it sweeter; or they do a 2-for-1 deal where they exchange one player and then do a separate cash transaction to get around the maximum amount a chairman will pay. And don’t tell me Gino at Liverpool has never done one of them. You only have to watch the ITV expose on English club managers to know they all do it.”
“And another thing – all these rules are in place because of the way the marketplace works in SM. Cash is worthless, and all managers ever want are other players. If the transfer market worked more like real life, then we wouldn’t need the transfer ban or any of these other mechanisms for making deals.”
Reporter: “So if everybody’s doing it to some degree or another, what was all the fuss about on Tuesday night?”
Owen: “Well my own theory is that a few of the English managers were drowning their sorrows after watching a particularly poor English national team performance, and leaped into print with less consideration than usual.”
At which juncture, Owen swept from the room for a well-deserved Doppelbock before putting the squad through its training paces.
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