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International roundup Trapattoni denies making bid for Man U's Beckham
Posted: Sunday August 01, 1999 06:29 PM
LONDON -- Manchester United has turned down "an audacious bid" by Italian Serie A side Fiorentina for England international David Beckham, according to a newspaper report. Fiorentina coach Giovanni Trapattoni on Sunday denied the report. The British Sunday Mirror said Fiorentina offered a world record fee of $56.7 million in their effort to recruit Beckham. Trappatoni was quoted in the paper as saying he had been urged to approach United by his Argentine striker Gabriel Batistuta. Said Trappatoni: "We did try an audacious bid to bring Beckham to Italy but United had no interest in selling him." Batistuta was quoted as saying: "I told the club to get Beckham, whatever the cost. "With him in the side, I would score at least 10 more goals a season because he is the best crosser of the ball in the world. He is the midfield player I rate above all others." On Sunday, however, Trapattoni insisted: "I have never made such a statement regarding this. "Perhaps our president Vittorio Cecchi Gori [a leading Italian film producer] wanted to give Beckham a film contract." Wenger celebrates Anelka departureLONDON -- Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger celebrated beating European club champions Manchester United on Sunday -- but said Nicolas Anelka's expected $35.3 million move to Real Madrid pleased him just as much. Wenger anticipated the deal going through in the next few days after weeks of speculation over the French striker's future. The coach, whose team ended United's nine-month run without defeat with a 2-1 Charity Shield victory at Wembley, said: "He is not coming back here, and although the contract is not signed yet, I hope it will be after his medical and that is the end of it. "I am as delighted about this finishing as I am about winning today." Real president Lorenzo Sanz said earlier: "If we can complete the signing of Anelka, it would be one of the biggest acquisitions we have made in years. "A few weeks ago we thought it would be impossible to sign him but now we are hoping he will be a Real Madrid player very soon. "It is worth it to pay 5,500 million pesetas [US$35.3 million]. It will be a sensational signing." Wenger brought the French striker to Highbury as a little-known 17-year-old three years ago but has been frustrated by Anelka's outspoken criticism of both the club and England during the summer. He said on Sunday: "I have mixed feelings as I wanted to keep the player, but it simply could not happen because I could not sit down and talk to him. The whole thing became more like a power struggle than a business deal." Although Arsenal had threatened to take Real Madrid to FIFA for allegedly illegally contacting the player, Wenger said: "Real Madrid have explained their earlier action and this is satisfactory to Arsenal." He said it was a case of going ahead or "kill the deal and kill the career of the player." "Arsenal could survive that, but I am not sure that the player could -- and we did not want to do that to him." Wenger said he was interested in two new strikers, including Thierry Henry of Juventus. "He wants to play for us and has the qualities we need," he said. 'Bung' in parcel, says United boss FergusonLONDON -- Manchester United chairman Martin Edwards received a death threat from a shadowy Russian soccer agent after an abortive attempt to buy off manager Sir Alex Ferguson, Monday's Times reported. The newspaper, which is serializing Ferguson's autobiography Managing My Life, said the threat was made four years ago when the agent was trying to force through the transfer of Russian forward Andrei Kanchelskis from United to Everton. Ferguson says in his book that the agent presented him with 40,000 pounds (US$64,820) in cash wrapped in a parcel in an attempt to trap him into accepting a 'bung.' The agent had lured Ferguson to a hotel and insisted he accept the "gift." "I assumed it contained a samovar or some other typically Russian present," Ferguson writes in his book. "I was in for a shock. What the box contained was money, bundles of the stuff." Ferguson took the cash to United's Old Trafford ground the next day and put it in the club safe. When he tried to return the money later in the company of Edwards, the agent turned nasty, insisting that Kanchelskis should be sold to Everton immediately. "Before long tempers were lost ... [The agent] screamed at the chairman: 'If you don't transfer him now, you will not be around much longer.'" Ferguson adds: "There was no doubting the seriousness of the threat. The meeting ended shortly afterwards, much to our relief." Shortly afterwards United sold Kanchelskis to Everton for five million pounds. Penev quits Celta Vigo to take over CSKA SofiaVIGO, Spain -- Celta Vigo striker Lubo Penev confirmed on Sunday he had retired from playing soccer to become president of CSKA Sofia in his native Bulgaria. Penev, 32, was elected president of the club on July 23, and he had already said he would hang up his boots if he got the post. The Bulgarian appeared for CSKA first as a youth player and then as a professional between 1985 and 1989. Celta president Horacio Gomez said, "His retirement is a great loss for Celta and for football." Since arriving in Spain a decade ago, Penev has played for Valencia, Atletico Madrid, Compostela and then Celta last season. He was one of the Spanish first division's most prolific scorers, hitting 129 goals in 305 matches for his four clubs. The popular Penev will be remembered in Spain not only for his poacher's touch in the penalty box but also his successful fight in 1994 against testicular cancer, from which he has now fully recovered. Troubled Scottish club Clydebank draws record low crowdGLASGOW -- Troubled Scottish soccer club Clydebank has gone into the record books for staging a game where the crowd barely outnumbered the players. Just 29 people paid to see the first division side lose 2-1 to East Stirling in the first round of the Scottish League Cup on Saturday -- the smallest-ever attendance at a senior game in Britain. It fuelled doubts the homeless club, which played the match 35 kilometers away in Greenock, would survive the season. Clydebank has not had its own ground for several seasons since selling their Kilbowie Park headquarters to a property developer. Players have been forced to wait for their wages to be paid, and on Friday the club was placed, for a few hours at least, in liquidation until a 15,000 pounds (US$24,310) tax bill was paid. No end in sight to Rushfeldt transfer disputeOSLO -- Benfica has failed to deliver a bank guarantee for Rosenborg Trondheim striker Sigurd Rushfeldt, and now the Norwegian champions are considering selling him to another foreign club. Benfica had until July 31 to deliver the bank guarantee for 24 million Norwegian crowns (US$3.08 million) for Rushfeldt, who had been training with the club since early July. Rosenborg had already received about six million crowns from Benfica but recalled Rushfeldt home last week as their patience ran out. "We will write to Benfica to make it clear that Rushfeldt is now ours," Rosenborg director Rune Bratseth told the daily Aftenposten. "We will also consider whether we will keep the money that Benfica have already paid to us as compensation." Benfica is understood to have complained to FIFA, soccer's world governing body, over Rosenborg's action. But Rosenborg chairman Knut Skoglund said he was sure the club would resolve any problems with FIFA. "The only thing we have done wrong in this case was that we trusted Benfica. They promised a bank guarantee, which has not arrived, but really we should have waited until the guarantee was in place before we allowed Rushfeldt to join them," Skoglund told Aftenposten. Rushfeldt's future at Rosenborg is now uncertain. The club had not included him in their plans and last week bought John Carew from Oslo's Valerenga. "The most likely outcome is that we will sell Rushfeldt to another foreign club," said Bratseth. "There are many clubs interested in him."
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