Djurgården’s PR work on the deal to sell August Priske to Birmingham City continues, as everyone celebrates a big fee for the Swedish club.
Ola Gustavsson provides the big pat on the back today in Fotboll Direkt. He’s impressed by the fee that Djurgården have secured for the striker.
For those not in the loop, Priske joined Birmingham this week in a ‘huge deal’. The deal was done quickly by the Blues after a few days of negotiations. The potential transfer was first reported on January 15th, with Birmingham dropping something of a transfer bomb.
Now, the interesting part is the fee. Djurgården, for their part, were keen to emphasise to everyone in the months previous that Priske would a club-record deal.
“Yes, I’m completely convinced of that. Yes, he will beat Lucas Bergvall anyway. Otherwise, he will play in Djurgården in 2026. I think August Priske will go to a really big club,” he said.
That obviously didn’t happen, given Tottenham paid €20m for Lucas Bergvall.
Bosse was keen to praise Birmingham City today, while accepting the deal was now their second best ever instead.
In reality, Birmingham have not even paid half of the record fee, and the Swedish will see a further chunk disappear. That’s because FC Midtjylland are due 40% of the profit from the agreement when they sold Priske to Djurgården for €300,000 in 2024.
That means Djurgården have secured a fee far below the big one Andersson was initially talking about. It certainly won’t be anywhere near as successful as the sale of Bergvall to Tottenham.
Birmingham City transfer fee PR
That’s something everyone seems to be acutely aware of. But Gustavsson is keen to ensure that’s not the story being presented.
“The deal is demonstrably Djurgården’s second biggest of all time. Priske’s journey is perhaps the most sensational we have seen in Dif,” he said.
“I mean that, with all due respect to Priske, he is a fairly simple football player but with a psyche of international class.
“If I were to further reinforce this, I would have thought that 35-40 million kronor (€4.7m to €5.3) would have been quite an okay amount of money for him.”
