On transfer deadline day, Nottingham Forest were needing a new goalkeeper, eventually deciding to sign Matz Sels from RC Strasbourg.
RMC Sport have a long article on Wednesday afternoon where they explain the ins and outs of what happened in the week before everything that led to the player’s move to the Tricky Trees.
They start off by revealing that the new Nottingham Forest player met Vadim Vasilyev, previously AS Monaco president and now an agent, on January 25th alongside Chahir Belghazouani, whose role is to bring in players who want a new club.
That’s when the then-Strasbourg goalkeeper makes it clear that he wants a new club this summer, and wants to work with Vasilyev to do so, which is when he unofficially teams up with VV Consulting.
The only request the goalkeeper makes is that his former agent, with whom he didn’t have a mandate, is part of the deal as a ‘percentage’.
He told RMC Sport that he had been working with that person for 14 years and didn’t want to just leave him penniless, especially because of all the prior contracts he had put together for him over the course of his career.
This is when Vasilyev starts activating his contacts, and when speaking with Ross Wilson, the director of football at Nottingham Forest, he finds out that they are looking for a new number one between the sticks.
That’s when Belghazouani contacted Sels to ask him if it would be of interest to him, and player ‘quickly gave the green light’ before informing his former agent.
Nottingham Forest like him and at 11.15am on January 31st, Wilson asks for more information and tells Vasilyev that he’ll get the goalkeeping coach to look into Sels.
They quickly come back by saying it could interest them, but it depends on the conditions set by Strasbourg, and whether the goalkeeper is allowed to leave.
This is when Vasilyev has to tell Strasbourg of the possible deal and tells Marc Keller, their president, who ‘shows himself rather bothered at the idea’ of losing Sels.
The goalkeeper hears of this at 8pm and says: “That’s the talk to make the price go up. They have another day to find someone else.”
At 11.07pm, Sels asks Belghazouani for an update, and that’s when it looked like everything would fall through, adding: “It didn’t smell good. I know him well, if Keller doesn’t answer, it means there’s no way of leaving. Doing it all tomorrow quickly will be hard.”
The next day, the still Strasbourg goalkeeper turns up to training, where he has a meeting with the club.
During this time, his former agent heads to England behind everyone’s back, which is when Sels tells the Ligue 1 side that ‘he has found an agreement’ with Nottingham Forest and he has made his mind up.
He then explains he will go home for an hour to think about things, but he instead ‘quickly picks up his stuff in the dressing room, saying goodbye to some staff members’ that were there.
Sels said: “Before that, I didn’t have anything concrete. No financial offers. For me, leaving in January was hard. They gave me the contract Thursday morning.”
At this point, Vasilyev knows nothing of what’s happening, but Sels has a private jet waiting for him at Strasbourg sent by Nottingham Forest heading to London, with the former AS Monaco president only finding out about the deal when checking Sky Sports.
A lot of games and a lot of confusion, but the only thing Tricky Trees fans will care about is they got their man.
