Manchester City chief executive Ferran Soriano slowed down Ferran Torres’ move to Barcelona by scrutinising the deal ‘with a magnifying glass’.
That’s according to Sport, who say the City chief ‘did not make it easy’ when the Catalan giants moved for the Spanish striker.
Torres completed a move to the Nou Camp earlier this week, sealing a £46.7m deal to return to Spain from the Etihad.
He had been linked with a move for the best part of a month, with it widely reported in Spain that negotiations were underway as Xavi had identified the player as the man to fill the hole left by Sergio Aguero’s retirement.
The deal took some time to get over the line, with negotiations between the two clubs stumbling along and hitting several roadblocks.
Most of it was regarding the finances involved, but it seems Soriano also played his part in slowing things down.
According to Sport, Manchester City’s chief executive ‘made some difficulties’ in the operation, which meant it ‘took much longer’ to get things done.
Sources close to the negotiation have told the newspaper that Soriano ‘did not make it easy’ and looked at everything in the deal ‘with a magnifying glass’.
Barcelona, though, believe there was another player behind the scenes and that former presidential candidate Victor Font was ‘behind the complications’.
He was Joan Laporta’s main rival in the presidential race last year and is a ‘good friend’ of Soriano, so there is a belief he may have convinced the Manchester City executive to make things difficult.
That’s speculation on the newspaper’s part, of course, but at least we now know that it was Soriano’s meticulousness that made the Torres transfer drag out in the way it did.
