The notoriously silly Turkish media have outdone themselves once again. As if the whole Loic Remy to Besiktas for €7m nonsense wasn’t enough — which is either tragic (if true) or comedic (if false), but probably not even worth the weight of this throwaway comment — here’s a supposed quote from Fenerbahce chairman Aziz Yildirim about supposed Fenerbahce target John Obi Mikel.
“Chelsea want €35 million for Mikel.”
-source: Turkish Football
I’d love to take this at face value because it’s both outrageous and hilarious, but even if the Fener chairman did in fact say something like this, he seems to have been admonishing the press at the same time for rumor mongering that’s not helping the club conduct their business. So maybe he made up an outrageous figure just as a negotiating tactic or misdirection or simply just some good old fashioned trolling. Either way, the report does claim that the price is high enough to dissuade Fenerbahce from further pursuing their interest.
That said, on the off chance this turns out to be true in some way, shape, or form, let me be the first to (once again) congratulate our fantastic front office, who may not always end up with the cheapest deal when buying players, but are certainly wonderful at getting a ton of money for spare parts and backups. From SB Nation.