Doublespeak audible through transfer window

Matthew Syed, The Times Last updated at 12:01AM, August 7 2013 Where is Alan Turing when you need him? The late lamented mathematician, who ought to be given a posthumous knighthood for his brilliant decoding of German Second World War communications, would have made a terrific pundit during the period of subterfuge known in the modern communications world as the football transfer window. For two months every summer, and another four weeks in January, everyone speaks in code. There are unsettled players, immovable chairmen, unstated transfer requests and an entire litany of contractual clauses that either do or dont permit interested clubs to talk to players, depending on whether the anonymous source was close to the player, the chairman, or, as is the case most of the time, if we are being honest about it, the agent. I place the term agent in inverted commas for the simple reason that it is the agent who is often responsible for the carefully choreographed bulls*** that characterises the modern transfer saga. This is when this curious breed comes to the fore, like double agents, working for their players, but also, of course, for the cut that comes their way whenever money churns. Not all are leeches, some are really rather good, but their main skill is in talking bollocks, mostly off the record. In some respects, it is rather funny, in a dark sort of way. My all-time favourite transfer saga took place in the summer of 2009, when John Terry, stalwart of Stamford Bridge, legendary Blue, lion-hearted favourite of the Shed, started his long flirtation with the sheikhs of Manchester City while his erstwhile fans looked on like cult followers who have just realised the Messiah is actually a geezer from Barking with an eye for the main chance. As the behind-the-scenes negotiations went into overdrive, and Chelsea fans looked for an emphatic denial from their man, Terry sustained a monastic silence at his holiday home on the island of Tenerife. Only when he had screwed a pay increase that took his salary to a reported 170,000 per week did we hear from the Chelsea captain. I am totally committed to Chelsea and always have been, he said. How we all laughed. There is nothing wrong with making as much money as possible most of us operate a bit like that but to do so while taking everyone for suckers was priceless. You dont need an Enigma machine to make the translation, but heres my best guess at what he really meant: I would have run for the hills if Chelsea hadnt handed me a fatter pay check, but now I want fans to believe that my loyalty is roughly

comparable to that of a guy who has just had an outline of Stamford Bridge tattooed on his testicles. Today, it is Luis Surez who is at the forefront of transfer machinations. The Uruguay striker, whose biting performances in the Barclays Premier League have created a legion of admirers, is being chased by Arsenal and also, depending on a possible move by Gareth Bale to Real Madrid, Tottenham Hotspur. Surez is, apparently, unhappy, and not just because he doesnt have an arm to chew on. He wants Champions League football. He wants out of Anfield. However, despite his desire to move, he hasnt yet handed in a formal transfer request. Could it be that his reticence is something to do with a residual fealty to the club who backed him throughout his various travails, as optimistic Liverpool fans rather hope? Or could it be that he wants to remain eligible for the loyalty payoffs in a contract that he is, when all is said and done, trying his hardest to break? Call me cynical, but I reckon it just might be the latter. Then we come to Wayne Rooney who, as this column noted last week, has done something of a volte-face. In 2010, he let it be known that he wanted to leave Manchester United, issuing the following piece of classic transfer shtick: the club do not match my ambition (his weekly wage rose to 250,000 after the episode). Today, however, Rooney wants to leave because he struggles to get into the team. United, it seems, are just a little too ambitious these days. On Monday, Rooney withdrew from a friendly in Stockholm, despite his involvement being publicised in a club tweet. The official explanation was that he had sustained an injury during a closed-doors match against Real Betis on Saturday. Sceptics wonder if the forward, who is keen on a move to Chelsea (but who still hasnt handed in a formal transfer request) refused to play. Funny, but Surez and Bale seem to be injured too. Ultimately, the entire transfer soap opera derives from a basic paradox. The players are, essentially, mercenaries, but they dare not let on for fear of alienating their fanbase. And so we get this dance every summer and winter, choreographed to make sordid financial manoeuvrings look like something anything else. The exceptions, such as Steven Gerrard, are so rare that anthropologists want to preserve them in amber for future generations. Many fans get thoroughly cheesed off with the whole shouting match, and it is easy to understand why. They look at the machinations of the window as an insult to their intelligence or, at the very least, an increasingly tiresome intrusion. But, as much to preserve our sanity as anything else, I reckon we should view it as something else: an exotic combination of farce, subterfuge and carefully packaged bull. One thing I am pretty certain of: Turing would have loved it.