In the past couple of months, we’ve covered a couple of stories which talked about Arsenal’s chance to sign Brazilian winger Willian back in his early days at Corinthians.
The Gunners had been scouting State Championships in Brazil, and when speaking to ESPN Brasil, scout Daniel Musatti explained he’s taken some positive notes about the player, and reported it to his superiors at the club.
Then one of Arsenal’s official clubs scouts at the time, Sandro Orlandelli, contacted ESPN Brasil to dismiss the story. He claimed Daniel had never been an Arsenal scout, and only did a couple of games as a test to see if he could be hired to help with all the work in South America.
With Sport Witness covering it, the story left the Brazilian media and made a bit of noise in Europe, something that none of the scouts had expected, making the situation a little bigger than they’d probably have wanted.
That’s why Daniel contacted us and asked us to explain his side of the story. So we’re publishing his full statement as follows:
In short.
One month ago, I received contact from ESPN Brasil to share some stories about athletes who will go to the World Cup, from their academy time.
Among them, about William when I made technical scouting for the Arsenal from England during the Paulista of 2006.
But the title of the story was totally incompatible, creating sensationalism with the name and supposed decisions of Wenger, whose name was never mentioned.
With the reproduction of the headline by the British media, it caused this reaction of Sandro Orlandelli, who although moved by a surreal title, and for reasons that I do not know, tried to despise and disqualify the work I did. Anyway, it’s a misunderstanding, I was called to praise William and tell stories of his youth years.
Actually, I’m just contacting you for writing both stories very well, and for being a Brazilian journalist writing for the British media. I am at your disposal if there is any other doubt.
The headache comes from the connotation, in the interview I just said: ‘ During a scouting at the 2006 Paulista for Arsenal at Sao Caetano, at the half time I suggested William to the Chief Scout who did not reply. The next day I received a report to scout Neto Baiano.’ I even have the audio of the entire interview recorded. I never mentioned anything about Wenger, Sandro or Arsenal, that was the story.
And I never put myself as a scout FROM Arsenal, but FOR Arsenal during the 2006 Paulista. Finally, this is the story, if there is a fight, it does not occur on my part, I just don’t accept being called a liar through lies, so I sent only one of several emails exchanged with Sandro himself and Mr. Richard Law between Jan and June 2006.”
Daniel has also sent Sport Witness two emails. One, forwarded, showing a chat he had with Sandro Orlandelli back in 2006. The other, attached below, is of a conversation with club director Dick Law.
“Lucas, I emailed you an email exchanged with Sandro Orlandelli in early February, proving that I was already developing scouting for him at that time, and that he knows me very well. As for the email I sent to ESPN, the information is all there, the black stripes are personal emails from the club and personal phone of Richard Law. Please note the date of the email and you will see that there were not only one or two games, I made a total of 11 games in a 16-game championship, over a period of 4 months.”
