The summer’s biggest transfer saga appeared to be finally over late last night after Manchester United agreed on a fee of £29m to sell David De Gea to Real Madrid. Unfortunately for the Spaniard his dream move to Madrid will have to wait a little while longer after it was revealed that though the contracts were drawn up after a day-long discussion between the two clubs, the transfer could not be legalized fully as Madrid failed to register David de Gea with the Spanish Football League (LFP) before their midnight transfer deadline.
Manchester United agreed to sell De Gea to Madrid on one condition which involved Keylor Navas moving to United as an exchange. According to a statement released by Real Madrid – ‘ Manchester United entered the details of the David de Gea deal, not those of Keylor Navas, at 00:00 Spanish time, simultaneously sending Real Madrid the signed transfer contracts. Real Madrid received this complete documentation at 00:02 and attempted to access TMS, but it was now closed. It further points out –‘ At 00:26 Spanish time, FIFA’s TMS invited Real Madrid to fill out the details of the player David de Gea, as the period of registration in England remains open until today. Real Madrid, in view of the possible eventuality of an administrative dispute over the player’s transfer, decided to send the contracts to the Liga de Fútbol Profesional, despite the knowledge that the deadline had passed’.
Though United managed to register the transfer with TMS, Madrid have blamed them of wasting precious time at crucial points during the day, which eventually led to the delay in completion of necessary Paperwork.
It’s very simple Madrid were keen to finalize the transfer yesterday i.e. the last day of the transfer window in Spain. Both the clubs entered talks early Monday morning and by the afternoon they had mutually agreed on a deal. For a transfer to be complete both the selling and buying clubs need to enter the exact same details in the Transfer Matching System, after which they need to register the player with their country league. In the case David De Gea, both the clubs were successful in registering with the TMS but Madrid couldn’t register De Gea with the Spanish Football League before the transfer window slam shut in Spain.
Clubs in England can request a one-hour extension on deadline day to complete the necessary paperwork, but the Spanish FA doesn’t have any such provisions. De Gea will be allowed to sign a pre-contract with Real in January, but the next eight months with Van Gaal will be very awkward.
A similar situation took place two years ago when Real Madrid tried to sign Guilherme Siqueira and sell Fabio Coentrao to Manchester United, but the deal was not done in time.