One of the summers more bizarre transfer stories hit the press yesterday with Gervinho turning down a move to Al-Jazira.

Supposedly the United Arab Emirates club pulled the plug on the £10m deal after the striker made excessive contractual demands such as the club paying for him to have a helicopter, to give him his own private beach and an unlimited amount of airline tickets back to his homeland in the Ivory Coast.

Rightly the UAE club have called the ludicrous demands ‘obscene‘. They should never bow down to such player demands.

But looking at it from Gervinho’s perspective, I can see why he would make such outlandish requirements. Surely we’ve all went into certain work or family negotiations and have asked for ridiculous things just so we don’t have to do certain tasks.

The forward is twenty-eight years old and that is usually heading into a peak age for a professional footballer. So would he really want to wash up on a beach in the middle-east just yet?

Money probably isn’t a huge issue for the attacker who has no doubt had lucrative contracts at both Arsenal and current side Roma.

The African player understands that European football is still the best place to show off your talents. New world countries are becoming more popular with their wads of cash but that is usually for the slightly older veterans not for a twenty-eight year olds who can still get a game in the Champions League.

Say Barcelona were to come in for the Roma man. Would he demand a helicopter from them? Nope of course he wouldn’t!

I really don’t think Gervinho was being particularly greedy over the deal with Al-Jazira, he simply didn’t fancy heading out to retirement just yet.

If anything I don’t think he actually asked for enough. I would have also wanted a 10ft golden statue of myself at the football stadium, Tom Kerridge hired as my own personal chef and a gold coin swimming pool much like the one Scrooge McDuck had!

No doubt further down the line Gervinho will one day end up at somewhere like the UAE, China or Qatar. But fair play to him for not chasing the money this time and holding out for a European move.

Had he joined Al-Jazira everyone who is mocking him over his demands would have instead slagged him off for being unambitious. So he could never win this one.

Posted on July 1st, 2015 by scott
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