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Massimo Cellino Wishes Newcastle Had Come Up With The Money For Ross McCormack

10 years ago
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The Leeds United owner has said that he wishes Newcastle had came up with the money to buy his star striker Ross McCormack.

Massimo Cellino had claimed earlier that he’d turned down an offer by Newcastle for McCormack, but was left with no alternative than to sell to a Championship rival when neither Newcastle or West Ham, who had also expressed an interest, came in with a suitable bid.

Cellino claiming that he’d stuck a £10m price tag on the striker’s head because he didn’t think for a second anybody would pay that much, but Fulham ended up paying a sizeable £10.75m for the forward.

In the aftermath, the Leeds United owner has launched a bit of character assassination on McCormack;

“I didn’t want to sell McCormack because he was our best player, he scored 29 goals.

“I’m very unhappy because McCormack decided to go for another experience, he tried to walk away in January to Cardiff and was already ‘sold’ for £2m – but I turned it down.

“He told me he wanted to go for a lot of reasons; his wife, his kids…he’d just signed a 3 year contract and he was happy with the wages…but they offered him better wages.

“I wasn’t happy to sell so I said OK, if you want him give me £10m, I said that because I was sure nobody would offer it.

“When it came to pre season (2 week training camp in Italy) McCormack didn’t come because he said he felt sick, there was a problem with his family…I was really disappointed and in his mind he was gone.

“Then I worked a lot on the deal and we closed McCormack for £10,750,000, that’s important money for the club.

“I didn’t like that it was another Championship side, I wouldn’t have minded if it was a side from the Premier League.”

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