“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
Stuart Pearce, former Manchester City manager, has revealed why the club was forced to transfer Shaun Wright-Phillips to Chelsea in 2005.
Wright-Phillips left Manchester United after nine years for Chelsea in the 2005 summer transfer window for a price of £21 million.
The winger spent three years at Stamford Bridge before returning to Manchester United for £9 million.
However, the manager who had to deal with this departure at the time has recently thrown some insight on the behind-the-scenes concerns with this specific transfer agreement.
Pearce claims that City had to sell Wright-Phillips in order to keep the club afloat. Manchester City vs. Aston Villa
Pearce had this to say regarding the situation that led to City selling Wright-Phillips to Chelsea on talkSPORT.
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“When I was Manchester City manager, I’d managed nine matches at the end of the season, and I was acutely aware of the football club’s financial situation, as in it was bust, to be quite honest with you,” he remarked.
“I believe it was two weeks before the season started that the chief executive called me in and said, ‘Look, we’ve had an offer, £21 million will be paid in cash on Monday morning from Chelsea, and if you don’t sell him, we’ll go bust as a football club.'”
“Now, I knew before we had that conversation that if I was put in this situation, the club had to come before me or the chief executive or anyone else, and the club had to continue to exist.”
“But the important thing for me was to get the message out there of the expectation, don’t buff it up with the supporters, just say look this is where we’re at at the moment, we have no money as a football club, we’ve had to sell [Nicolas] Anelka six month ago, we sold Shaun Wright-Phillips but the club has to remain standing and has to be a Premier League club.”
During his two stints with the Citizens, the Englishman appeared in 274 games in all competitions, scoring 48 goals and providing 23 assists.
Wright-Phillips scored 10 goals and gave 18 assists in 125 games for Chelsea, winning the Premier League, FA Cup, and League Cup.
If the club’s financial condition was as dire as Pearce said at the time, then selling Wright-Phillips was unquestionably the right option to make, especially given it could have played a role in Sheikh Mansour’s takeover in 2008.
