Phil SumblerJulian Winter has moved to try and defend the sale of Joe Rodon to Tottenham on transfer deadline day or more specifically tried to defend the ridiculously low price that we got for our prized asset.
Welsh international Rodon departed the Liberty for the sum of a reported sum which could amount to £15m with the Swans seemingly keen to cash in on the player that they had always anticipated would move on during the summer transfer window.
However, the amount of money attracted much criticism and keeps to a trend that has happened so much in the past of players who leave the Liberty for far less than most people think the player is worth.
It is appreciated that the financial pressures of the club have meant additional needs to bring in income but with former Chairman Trevor Birch being all to aware of the precarious nature of our balance sheet it does appear that he has taken advantage of that knowledge and maybe the weaknesses that his departure had left within the boardroom.
Winter talks about Spurs being the only club showing an interest – despite our best efforts – but that still doesn’t mean that you take the first offer, make them work for it is the bare minimum, getting what he is worth being just the essential part that sits behind it.
We did try with a couple of other clubs, but that wasn’t going anywhere.
We got to a point where in order to create a deeper squad with the permanents (signings) that we brought in, I think that’s great for the club for the longer term.
Obviously we’ve still got loans – the loans have been great for us – but you need to start to develop a stronger base in the sense of more permanent players with us.
So younger, developable ones, some experienced ones – the likes of Ryan Bennett, who brings a level of experience, a set of skills, history with promotions and playing in the Premier League.
And when you add it all together, you have to take a view and we took a view that the deal for Joe isn’t a bad deal. – Julian Winter, Swansea CEO
This is the point where we are still not going to be in agreement. It is natural for Winter to defend his first deal in charge of the club but to get such a pitiful price for a Welsh international – no matter what the circumstances – is not really defensible. The simple fact is it appears we wanted to sell, Spurs knew we wanted to sell and mugged us off for as little money as was possible. It really feels as simple as that.
Winter also hit back at some of the comments made by Steve Cooper who has said that he was not involved in the sale of Rodon and also stated that he found out about the sale of Kris Peterson via text on a day when he expected him to be in the playing squad
“It’s a joined-up approach and ever since I’ve been here, there’s been an open conversation between everyone involved in player transfers,” added Winter.
“Nobody was surprised by any of the activity. Okay, the timing of some of the stuff was quite difficult at times.”
