President Florentino Perez has accused Manchester United of dragging their feet during David de Gea's botched transfer to the Spanish giants.
The Madrid chief claims the Red Devils took over eight hours to send the contracts back to the Spanish capital, meaning it was too late for Madrid to enter the transfer onto FIFA’s Transfer Matching System on time.
Speaking on Spanish radio, Perez did not hide his frustration at the farcical end to the final day of the transfer window in Spain on Monday which also prevented Madrid goalkeeper Keylor Navas from joining United.
He also accused the Premier League outfit of “lacking experience” in the transfer market, recalling that they also failed to sign Ander Herrera from Athletic Bilbao on the final day of the summer transfer window in 2013, as well as bungling a loan move to take Portugal defender Fabio Coentrao from Madrid to Old Trafford.
“At 1330 Manchester United had all the papers but they took eight hours to return them,” Perez told radio station Cadena SER.
“It’s very unfortunate and I don’t want to blame anyone but we don’t understand why it took them so long to send them, or why they only decided to negotiate when there was 12 hours to go.
"I don’t think they had bad intentions, I just think they lack experience as the same thing happened with Coentrao and with Herrera. I had a feeling it wouldn’t happen on time because I couldn’t forget what happened the other year [with Coentrao], but we couldn’t leave De Gea in limbo.”
The Madrid president also dismissed United’s offer to appeal to FIFA in a bid to resolve the situation as “lip service”, insisting “we knew it was impossible” that they would get their man after the deadline had passed.
Perez also explained Madrid had cited De Gea for some time as the ideal candidate to become their goalkeeper and succeed club icon Iker Casillas, who ended his 16-year spell with the club earlier this summer by joining Porto.
“More than a year ago we decided that the future replacement for Casillas was De Gea. Then Keylor Navas signed and we were very happy with him but we had already made a commitment with De Gea,” he added.[UK Daily Mirror]
“I don’t know what will happen now, we can’t say what will happen because such little time has passed. I haven’t spoken to him but Jose Angel Sanchez has. He is very upset because he was really excited about joining Madrid.”
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