Brighton and Hove Albion made a late bid to sign Feyenoord star Orkun Kökçü from Feyenoord before he joined Benfica.
That’s according to 1908.nl, who say they were still trying to ‘hijack’ the deal while the player was arriving at Portela airport to complete his move to Portugal.
Kökçü has been heavily linked with a move away from Feyenoord for several years after establishing himself as the star of the show at De Kuip.
It appeared likely that he’d end up in the Premier League, where several sides have been credited with an interest over the last few transfer windows.
And it seems they were battling to win the race right up until the final moment too, with 1908 reporting that while the player was landing at Portela airport, the Seagulls still wanted to hijack the move.
According to their information they had ‘already prepared a bid’ for Kökçü, deploying Roberto de Zerbi to try and win over the player.
Their efforts ‘came too late’, though, as the player was already in Portugal and being mobbed by Benfica fans at the airport before catching a taxi that night and completing his move to the Estádio da Luz a day later.
At that point a move to Brighton was completely over, but had they moved a little earlier, they might have been the ones securing his signature.
