The Daily Mail reports that Roman Abramovich has tired of ceding the title of most hated owner (customary reference to Mike Ashley inserted here) to Florentino Perez and is willing to splash more than £100m on getting Andrea Pirlo, Franck Ribery, and Sergio Aguero to Stamford Bridge.
I think Pirlo could be induced to make the move to Stamford Bridge with a decent enough transfer fee of about £15-20m and Atletico could be tempted by a £45m offer for Sergio Aguero. But it will be very interesting to see the Ribery transfer happen, assuming they are serious about landing the Bayern midfielder. Everyone and anyone in the Bayern cabal has weighed in on Ribery with their valuations and judgments on the prospective owners. Bayern has always proved to be a tough club to negotiate with because it is not one owner but a composite where each one needs to be placated and made to feel that he is the final arbiter of that deal. The Owen Hargreaves negotiations went on for over a year before he came to Man Utd.
Uli Hoeness valued Ribery's legs at £50m each. Franz Beckenbauer gave a less segmental £80m justifying the price based on Cristiano Ronaldo's record transfer. Karl Heinz Rummenigge lashed out at Florentino Perez for being disuptive to the club with his underhanded liaisons with Ribery's agent.
John Terry has made signing big name players a condition of his staying on at Stamford Bridge (apart from that small matter of a £25,000 weekly wage increase) and since Abramovich has his undivided attention, he will most likely comply. Here is an insight into Terry's master class on salary negotiations.
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