How Ozil’s father scuppered playmaker’s move to United and City

According to Rob Shepherd of Sportsmail, Mesut Ozil could easily be playing for one of the Manchester clubs, but the agent’s fee demanded by his father, Mustafa, put the Premier League clubs off and he eventually signed for Arsenal in a record-breaking deal.

Excerpts:

Mesut Ozil flirted with Manchester City and Manchester United before agreeing to sign for Arsenal. But it is understood any chance of moving to either club broke down because of an astonishing £5million ‘agents commission’ fee that was demanded. In the final few weeks of the transfer window, when it became clear to all that Gareth Bale would join Real Madrid, it was obvious that the Spanish club would have to offload one of their big-name forwards to help finance the £86m fee. Ozil was told he would be sold for a fee in the region of 50m euros and was free to talk to clubs. His father Mustafa has guided his career ever since the German international of Turkish descent was seven. So approaching clubs out of the blue was nothing new to Ozil Snr. It’s just the number have got ever bigger. Even though City had done most of their business early, they were willing to listen. United even more so – with their hopes of landing Cristiano Ronaldo gone. The wage demands were in the region of £10m. Not unrealistic for a ‘platinum player’. But the stumbling block of a £5m ‘fixer’ fee – much of which would go to Ozil Snr – was. So the door was slammed shut. As time ran out, Arsenal were the best, perhaps only, option of landing a Champions League club for Ozil. So the demands had to be changed, although the £42m fee is what Real wanted as it’s just about half what they paid for Bale. I understand the ‘fixers fee’ was dramatically dropped to ‘just’ £1.5m. But the wages are still not far off the £10m-a-year Ozil wanted, which approaches the £200,000 a week mark, making him comfortably Arsenal’s top paid player of all-time.

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