“If you don’t sell him we’ll go bust as a football club.”-Stuart Pearce says selling £21m Man City player saved the club and was the best decision made by the Club
Pearce, who used to lead Manchester City, has talked about why the team had to sell Shaun Wright-Phillips to Chelsea in 2005.
Wright-Phillips left Manchester United for Chelsea in the summer of 2005 for a fee of £21 million. He had been there for nine years.
Before moving back to Manchester United for £9 million, the winger played for Chelsea for three years.
That being said, the boss who had to deal with the departure at the time has now explained what went wrong behind the scenes with this particular transfer deal.
Pearce says that Wright-Phillips had to be sold for Manchester City to keep the club going.
Pearce had this to say about the situation that caused City to sell Wright-Phillips to Chelsea on talkSPORT.
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He said, “When I was Manchester City manager, I would have overseen nine games by the end of the season. I was well aware of the football club’s dire financial situation—to be honest, it was bankrupt.”
“I think it was two weeks before the season started that the CEO called me in and said, ‘Look, we’ve had an offer. Chelsea will pay £21 million in cash on Monday morning, and if you don’t sell him, we’ll fail as a football club.'”
“Now, I knew before we talked that if I was in that situation, the club would have to stand before me, the CEO, or anyone else. The club has to still be there.”
“But the most important thing for me was to get the message out about what was expected. Don’t sugarcoat it with the fans; just tell them that this is where we are right now: as a football club, we have no money; we had to sell Nicolas Anelka and Shaun Wright-Phillips six months ago; but the club has to stay together and be a Premier League club.”
During his two stints with the Citizens, the Englishman played in 274 games across all competitions, hitting 48 goals and setting up 23 others.
In 125 games with Chelsea, Wright-Phillips scored 10 goals and set up 18 others. He helped the team win the Premier League, FA Cup, and League Cup.
If the club’s finances were as bad as Pearce said they were at the time, then moving Wright-Phillips was the right thing to do, especially since it could have had something to do with Sheikh Mansour taking over in 2008.
