Galatasaray has given Inter Milan midfielder Wesley Sneijder a deadline of 24 hours to decide if he wants to accept or reject the club’s transfer offer.
“Sneijder will give us a response inside 24 hours, but in 99 percent of these cases the transfer negotiations are already done,” Galatasaray director Bulent Tulun told Turkish radio station Radyospor, as quoted in the Gazzetta dello Sport.
Inter president Massimo Moratti confirmed that Inter had accepted a €10m for the midfielder.
“Galatasaray’s offer satisfies us. Now it depends on the player,” Moratti told Sky Sports. “We would be happy if he decided to stay on our terms.”
Newspaper reports in the UK say that Sneijder would still prefer a move to the Premier League, but unless Manchester United, Liverpool or Tottenham are going to hijack Galatasaray’s move at the last minute, Sneijder will be their player before the weekend.
I am still amazed that Inter are doing this to Sneijder. They could have sold him for three times the €10m they received from Gala, at any point over the last 18 months. But they didn’t and then they totally mishandled the situation this season as they tried to force Sneijder to accept a 25% pay cut.
But Motatti’s approach this season appears to have to slash Inter’s payroll regardless of what happens to the product on the pitch.
I wrote back in June that Inter’s bloated wage will was threatening their rebuilding plans.
Heading into the summer Inter had €31m tied up in wages to the eight players above. Keep in mind that many of these numbers are net pay which means that the actual cost to Inter is much higher. Wesley Sneijder is on €6 million net (which costs Inter €12 million) until 2015. Selling Sniejder to Galatasaray will knock €30 million of Inter’s wage bill over the next three seasons. That is a lot of money and makes you start to ask whether he is worth that?
The question that the Inter fans have now, is how will the Wesley Sneijder funds be used? Will Inter go out and bring in a couple of exciting young players, or will the money be used to pay down the clubs debt?
