Phil Jones is set to rubber-stamp his £16.5 million transfer to Manchester United today after Blackburn Rovers’ Indian owners conceded defeat in their attempts to inflate the cost of his move to Old Trafford.
United hope to confirm the central defender, who played for England Under-21s against Spain in the European Championship in Denmark last night, as their player after weekend talks involving senior figures and legal advisers from United and Blackburn resolved the impasse between the two clubs.
Blackburn’s owners, Venkys, had been investigating the possibility of a legal challenge to force United to raise their bid substantially due to their perception that the Premier League champions had benefited from leaked information surrounding the escape clause in Jones’s contract, which was inserted into the 19 year-old’s deal following a renegotiation in February.
Venkys also believed that the wording of the clause suggested that offers of over £16 million for Jones would merely entitle the bidders to open talks with the defender prior to making a more substantial offer to buy him.
With United being granted permission by senior figures at Ewood Park to perform a medical on Jones last Wednesday, however, the belief at Old Trafford is that Blackburn’s acquiescence to that examination taking place is in itself proof of meeting the terms of Jones’s clause.
The absence of a recognisable structure of senior management at Ewood Park following the recent departures of long-serving chairman John Williams and managing director Tom Finn has contributed to the confusion surrounding the Jones transfer.
But United have made it clear to poultry producers Venkys, who completed their Blackburn takeover only last November, that they have acted within the regulations by offering in excess of £16 million, as required by the terms of Jones’s clause, to secure the player’s services.
The case bears similarities to Liverpool’s £5.5 million move for the Middlesbrough defender Christian Ziege in Aug 2000.
That led to Middlesbrough taking Liverpool to the High Court on the grounds that the Anfield club “exploited confidential knowledge of Ziege’s contract with Middlesbrough” before offering the exact figure in the German international’s escape clause.
Firm interest in Jones from not only United but Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur had prompted Venkys to believe they could spark a bidding war that could see the player’s final valuation rise to as much as £25 million.
Despite an 11th-hour bid of £22 million from Liverpool on Saturday morning, Jones’s insistence that he was only prepared to leave Ewood Park for Old Trafford is understood to have ended all doubt.
It forced Venkys to accept the futility of their attempts to seek more money from the sale of their precious asset.
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