Wow, Actual Non-Fabricated News About Quagliarella

By: Martha | June 20th, 2007

Who's your daddy? Just as I was writing up yesterday’s confident press reports that Fabio Quagliarella’s co-owners had reached an agreement under which the Sampdoria would pay £4 million for Udinese’s half of the striker (and thus set things in motion for a massive, international bidding war), the news came through that the reports had in fact been ~~giant lies~~ sadly uninformed.

In reality — as announced by no less authority than Udine’s sporting director — the clubs have failed to reach an agreement of any kind, and will instead resolve the issue of Quagliarella’s ownership by means of a blind auction. Awesome. Only in Italy would the ownership of players a)be shared among multiple clubs, and b)be determined by writing values on pieces of paper and shoving them in envelopes. And that’s exactly what will happen: Each team will jot down the amount they’re willing to pay for the other team’s half of the player (Word has it Samp own his lower half which, while powerful, doesn’t work well without the head, so which half is actually most valuable is anyone’s guess.), and whoever bids the most gets to pay just that to the other team.

The co-ownership deal ends tonight, and the envelopes will be opened tomorrow morning in the football league offices; by tomorrow night, one assumes, Quagliarella will be whole again, and Manchester United and Roma will know who to start pestering with offers. For what it’s worth, the player is in love with Roma (a club with whom Udine reportedly aren’t real eager to negotiate) and “would gladly join” Man U, though his wise agent seems to think he’ll go no further than Sampdoria. In sum, your guess as to his destination is as good as anyone else’s, and don’t let any of those highly paid journalists tell you otherwise.

Some Related Serie A Posts:

Category: Roma, Rumors & News, Serie A

« Today in Chivu, Or: The Transfer Market Isn’t Even Open, and Already This is Totally Out of Control | Home | Spanish Press Won’t Let Go of Their Kaka-to-Real Dream »

Martha

It totally is, Chris. Imagine being in Rome, standing in line for the third day in a row to pay your cable bill only to hear your team had sorted out the ownership of six players in just the last few hours. You could be excused for a minor explosion of violence, at the very least.
Francesco

If both clubs bid the same, the player is 100% property of the club he was at. So if Udinese and Sampdoria bid the same, Quagliarella becomes 100% property of Sampdoria.

Also, clubs can renew a co-ownership for another year, but after 2 years they have to resolve it.
Chris

This is mostly for players who you would never know actually belong to other clubs. Roma have already sold 4, bought 1 and prolonged another co-ownership. I wanna be co-owned.

Is this officially the only day in Italy throughout the year where things get done quickly?
Martha

Thanks, Francesco, that was confusing me, too. So he stays where he was AND stays co-owned? Meaning, in the case of Quagliarella, he'd stay hard to sell to, say, Man U?
Martha

Damn they got that sucker back up fast! So far it's sort of disappointing over there -- they're reported stuff even I have known for days. Where's the Shocking!Breaking News?
Chris

tuttomercatoweb has crashed.

What a day!
Mike

liars and transactions and blind auctions; Oh My!

If the bids are identical, the incumbent wins a lollipop while the loser trades teams with Inter (with free spanish lessons, of course).

Didn't Juve screw Fiorentina in a blind auction for Miccoli? I think Florence was the team that bought 50% of Fabicco (you wouldn't think there's much to go around @ 5 ft), paid the player for a year, and then lost the player in an auction.

Juve not only kept the player but also made money on the deal, because Juve bought him outright for less than Fiorentina paid for half. He's been a little cash-cow (or um, maybe rabbit?), with all the money Juve has made renting him out.

He's no Maradona though, I don't know what he's smoking... Oh, mabe THAT's why he thinks he's Maradona.
Francesco

then the player stays with the team he was at during this season.

So for example, let's say Sampdoria and Udinese both bid 6 million euro, then Quagliarella stays at Sampdoria.
Paolo

What would happen if the bids submitted were indentical?
Francesco

Today is a fun day to follow during the calciomercato, it's Co-Ownership day, where club officials are all at the ATA Quark Hotel in Milan and are frenetically trying to make last minute negotiations to avoid the blind auction which takes place at 7 PM Italian time.

www.tuttomercatoweb.com is being updated almost every 5 minutes it seems with new updates from the Hotel.