City refuse to pay £25m for Real's Gago
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 @ 2:09 PM
Manchester City signed the Middlesbrough winger Adam Johnson in a deal worth £7m, but missed out on two other new recruits. City refused to spend £25m on Real Madrid's Argentine midfielder Fernando Gago, and their proposed £7m move for McDonald Mariga from Parma collapsed when he failed to be awarded a work permit.
The final day of the transfer window saw City refuse to meet Madrid's asking price for 23-year-old Gago – the club rejecting suggestions that their manager Roberto Mancini had been let down by the chief executive, Garry Cook, and football administrator, Brian Marwood. City also denied claims made in Spain last night that the clubs had agreed a fee of £15m for Gago only to miss yesterday's 5pm deadline because they could not complete the deal until they had an agreement from City's chairman, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, whom they could not reach in time.
On a frustrating day for City, Marwood and Mancini attended a work permit hearing for Mariga but because Kenya are outside the world's top 75 countries his move fell through. Internazionale seized the opportunity and signed the highly rated 22-year-old on a four-year deal.
Source: The Independent