***Transfer Rumours Thread*** [ALL RUMOUR TOPICS MERGED]

[lets all have a disco]

I can only imagine how it feels to negotiate 65k or 75k a week,how do they cope?

[Mike J]

[Ted Hughes]

I recon the most likely cause of the hold up will be about who pays the agent's bung or some similar shark related shenanigans. You can bet he's hit us with something from left field & we're not having it. That's probably why we allegedly wanted to renegotiate the transfer fee. City are probably refusing to do it unless the money gets knocked off the total cost so they're probably coming to a compromise between the three parties.

[Beeks]

[Ted Hughes]

[Renato_CTID]

[Wooders]

[mr_nool]

[Beeks]

[john@staustell]

Super Mario is a sure thing:

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchesterevening ... g_for_city

Mario Balotelli does not lack confidence. "I think I’ll become great," he said recently. "The best player out there."

That is some boast for a player still eight days shy of his 20th birthday, but it gives an indication as to why City boss Roberto Mancini is so keen to spend so much money on him.

At such a young age, the player nicknamed Super Mario already has a reputation – gifted but explosive, confident bordering on arrogant, a maverick with a magic spark.

The talent comes with baggage. In his four years at Inter Milan, Balotelli has won three Serie A titles, played his part in a Champions League triumph – and fallen out with just about anyone who happened to be passing through.

He has had very public disputes with former Inter boss Jose Mourinho – as well the club’s supporters – Italy Under-21 coach Pierluigi Casiraghi, Roma veteran Francesco Totti and his own biological parents.

It is not that Balotelli was the perpetrator in all of those rows, though. In some of them, he was the victim, and he has suffered a great deal of racial abuse from fans of rival clubs, particularly Juventus.

Controversy follows him around. And complex character that he is, the 19-year-old appears to simultaneously revel in the attention and be irritated by it.

"I always want to be the centre of attention," he said.

"That’s how I am and others don’t like it.

"Even if I don’t always behave as I should, this still doesn’t explain why so many people have something against me.

"Whatever I do, people always talk about me. They keep at it non-stop. Balotelli here, Balotelli there. Why?"

Some might say that Balotelli’s trouble. And at £24million, he could be very expensive trouble. But Mancini knows him as well as anyone in football. And so if anyone can harness the talent, it is City’s boss.

"I like Balotelli as a player," Mancini has said. "It is not true he is a difficult character. At his age, everyone makes mistakes. He is a good lad.

"He would be able to show his true value in England, because good players can do well anywhere."

And there is no doubt that Balotelli is a very good player. There were raised eyebrows all across Italy when Marcello Lippi left him out of his World Cup squad.

Lippi’s decision to turn to old hands at the expense of youthful talent cost his country dear, as they had an even worse World Cup than England.

Cesare Prandelli, Lippi’s successor, has at least shown he is prepared to give the youngsters a chance by naming Balotelli in his squad for a friendly against Ivory Coast at West Ham’s Upton Park next Tuesday.

A first senior cap for Italy can surely only be days away for the teenager, as Prandelli – like Mancini – can see the talent behind the controversy.

Mancini was in charge at Inter when Balotelli came to the club in 2006, an exciting young talent plucked from Italian third division side Lumezzane.

The youngster, then only 16, had been born in Palermo to Ghanaian immigrants Thomas and Rose Barwuah. He was raised by Italian foster parents from the age of two.

As Balotelli progressed at Inter under the watch of Mancini, who gave him his first-team debut in December 2006, the striker’s family history was thrust into the spotlight.

And when his biological parents gave interviews to the media about their son’s burgeoning football career two years ago, Balotelli accused them of glory hunting.

"If I hadn’t become Mario Balotelli, then Mr and Mrs Barwuah would not have cared about me," he said. After Inter sacked Mancini in 2008, Mourinho took charge – and found it difficult to get the best out of Balotelli.

The Portuguese coach accused his young striker of not making enough effort in training, and dropped him from the side.

Balotelli had to face racial chanting from Juventus fans after scoring against them later during Mourinho’s first season, prompting Inter president Massimo Moratti to state that he would have taken his team off the pitch had he been present.

In the meantime, the striker was criticised by Casiraghi for missing a flight from Milan to Trieste for a training camp, having apparently overslept.

Balotelli’s relationship with Mourinho and Inter frayed further last season, culminating in a training ground row which saw the teenager left out of their Champions League clash with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

He then incurred the wrath of his own fans by wearing the shirt of rivals AC Milan on an Italian television show.

And having returned to the Inter side, he threw his jersey on the ground at the end of a Champions League semi-final against Barcelona in April, as a reaction to booing from his own supporters.

A month later, Balotelli claimed that Roma striker Totti – a member of Italy’s World Cup-winning squad four years ago – racially abused him during the Coppa Italia final, a charge denied by the veteran.

Totti was sent off in that game for kicking Balotelli, and claimed the youngster taunted him by shouting: "Yo, Grandad! You are finished!"

The teenager insisted that version of events was not true either, as the row was played out in public.

There will, undoubtedly, be more controversy around Balotelli over the coming months.

The drawn-out nature of his transfer has taken on the air of a soap opera – one with a gripping plot that is ready to run and run.

"I am a boy, not a grown man, but I will become one," Balotelli has said.

His age undoubtedly counts in the 19-year-old’s favour, as Mancini can class him as an Under-21 player under new Premier League squad rules.

That means the City boss can play him without having to include him in the 25-man squad he will be restricted to under new Premier League rules.

It is, perhaps, a calculated risk by a manager who wants the very best players at his disposal as he bids to end the Blues’ long wait for success.

If the risk pays off, Mancini and Balotelli could be well on the way to a place in club folklore.

Mario Balotelli factfile:

Born: Palermo, August 12, 1990.
Clubs: Lumezzane, Inter Milan.
Honours: Champions League 2010; Serie A 2008, 2009, 2010; Supercoppa Italiana 2008; Coppa Italia 2010.
International honours: Italy Under-21s: 16 caps, 6 goals. Called up to senior Italy squad for next week’s friendly against Ivory Coast at Upton Park.
Family: Adopted by Italian foster parents aged two, Balotelli grew up with a sister, Cristina, and a brother, Corrado – who was also his agent until Mino Raiola took over that job in February.
Love life: Never short of admirers, he has most recently dated Greek model Betty Kourakou.
Holiday choices: Surprised everyone last summer by going on a camping trip to a nature reserve in Sicily.
Law trouble: Balotelli was once fined £31 for repeatedly honking his car horn after 1am in a built-up area of Milan, and was stopped by the city’s police in June for brandishing a toy gun in Piazza della Repubblica.
Admirer: Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti: "Mario is a crazy talent. With him, Manchester City will challenge for the Premier League title, not just fourth."
Detractor: Real Madrid boss Jose Mourinho: "The guy has incredible qualities, but sometimes does not know how to use his brain."

[Wooders]

apparently the hold up is because of a mooted swap deal for Robinho that Inter are considering - one way or another super mario is our player

[Blue Blood]

[dikdik]

Be careful what you wish for...

[Beeks]

[9secondlegend]

breaking news ssn: sunderland make offer to take joe hart on loan.


edit: sorry just saw it another thread now

[DoomMerchant]

[gillie]

[DoomMerchant]

[lets all have a disco]

Get the deals done FFS.

[Ted Hughes]

“The fee is too high and his wage demands are just ludicrous,” an insider was quoted as saying in the Daily Star.

That's that then.